Yuechen is a four-year Ph.D. candidate with Beihang University. His interests include both theoretical and empirical research on foundations of quantum software engineering (QSE), and applications of quantum information theory /quantum computing. The current studies during his Ph.D. program have a focus on quantum software testing.

Education

• Ph.D. (2022.9-Now)
  School of Automation Science and Electrical Engineering, Beihang University, Beijing, China.
• Joint Ph.D. student program (2025.10-2026.9)
  Faculty of Information Science and Electrical Engineering, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan.
• B.Eng. (2018.9-2022.6)
  School of Automation Science and Electrical Engineering, Beihang University, Beijing, China.

Paper (Selective)

Quantum Software Engineering

Yuechen's research covers multiple phases or activities of the quantum software development lifecycle. The paper types incorporate methodological proposals, empirical studies, literature reviews, and tooling constructions.

Software Testing & Debugging

• Yuechen Li, Kai-Yuan Cai, Beibei Yin. A Dynamic Test Oracle for Quantum Programs with Separable Output States[J]. IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, 2026, 25(4): 1568-1591. (TSE, CCF-A) [Paper] [Artifact]
• Yuechen Li, Minqi Shao, Jianjun Zhao, Qichen Wang. A Methodological Analysis of Empirical Studies in Quantum Software Testing[J]. arXiv preprint arXiv:2601.08367, 2026. (arXiv) [Paper] [Artifact]
• Linzhi Huang, Hanyu Pei, Yuechen Li, Beibei Yin, Kai-Yuan Cai. A Dynamic Testing Strategy with Incremental Learning Model for Quantum Programs[J] IEEE Transactions on Quantum Engineering, 2025, 7: 1-27. (TQE, JCR-Q1) [Paper] [Artifact]
• Yuechen Li, Kai-Yuan Cai, Beibei Yin. Preparation and Utilization of Mixed States for Testing Quantum Programs—RCR Report[J]. ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology, 2025, just accepted. (TOSEM, CCF-A) [Paper] [Artifact]
• Yuechen Li, Kai-Yuan Cai, Beibei Yin. Preparation and Utilization of Mixed States for Testing Quantum Programs[J]. ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology, 2025, 34(8): 1-44. (TOSEM, CCF-A) [Paper] [Artifact]
• Linzhi Huang, Hanyu Pei, Yuechen Li, Beibei Yin, Kai-Yuan Cai. A Strategy of Dynamic Random Testing with Hybrid Distance Metrics for Quantum Programs[C] //2024 IEEE 24th International Conference on Software Quality, Reliability and Security (QRS). 2024: 1-12. (QRS, CCF-C) [Paper]
• Yuechen Li, Hanyu Pei, Linzhi Huang, Beibei Yin, Kai-Yuan Cai. Automatic Repair of Quantum Programs via Unitary Operation[J]. ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology, 2024, 33(6): 1-43. (TOSEM, CCF-A) [Paper]

Search-based Software Engineering

• Man Zhang, Yuechen Li, Tao Yue, Kai-Yuan Cai. Empirical Studies on Quantum Optimization for Software Engineering: A Systematic Analysis[J]. arXiv preprint arXiv:2510.27113, 2025. (arXiv) [Paper] [Artifact]
• Man Zhang, Yuechen Li, Tao Yue, Kai-Yuan Cai. Quantum Optimization for Software Engineering: A Survey[J]. arXiv preprint arXiv:2506.16878, 2025. (arXiv) [Paper] [Artifact]

Software Maintenance & Evolution

• Zenghui Zhou*, Yuechen Li*, Yi Cai, Jinlong Wen, Xiaohan Yu, Zheng Zheng, Beibei Yin. Code Comments for Quantum Software Development Kits: An Empirical Study on Qiskit[J]. arXiv preprint arXiv:2512.00766, 2025. (* Equal contribution) (arXiv) [Paper] [Artifact]
• Xiaohan Yu, Yuechen Li, Jinlong Wen, Kai-Yuan Cai, Beibei Yin. QuAInth: A Code Comment Approach for Application-Oriented Quantum Programs via N-Version LLMs[C] //2025 25th International Conference on Software Quality, Reliability and Security (QRS). 2025: 13-24. (QRS, CCF-C) [Paper] [Artifact]

Academic Service

Invited Reviewer

• 2025: IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology, Empirical Software Engineering, Knowledge-Based System
• 2024: IEEE Software

Talk

• Yuechen Li. Exploring Quantum Optimization for Software Engineering. 1st Workshop on Quantum Optimization Algorithms and Applications (co-located with 2025 IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation), June 2025, Hangzhou, China. (Lightning talk) [Slides]

Funding

• Visiting Ph.D. student program, China Scholarship Council (CSC), China (2025.10-2026.9)

Award (Selective)

• Outstanding graduate of regular higher education institutions in Beijing (北京市普通高等学校优秀毕业生, 2022.7)
• Outstanding student of Beihang University (北京航空航天大学校级优秀生, 2021.9)

Contact

Welcome to have an academic or technical discussion with me via liyuechen@buaa.edu.cn 😊.
I welcome academic and technical discussions related to my research interests. Please include your name, affiliation, and the topic you would like to discuss in your email.