Hanwen Liu

Ph.D. Candidate in Computer Science

University of Southern California NexDIG Lab Advised by Prof. Ibrahim Sabek

My research has two bidirectional threads: AI/ML + LLMs ↔ Database Systems, and Quantum Computing ↔ Data Management Systems.

Before USC, I completed my M.Sc. at Technical University of Munich, advised by Prof. Thomas Neumann, and received my IEEE Honor Bachelor Degree from Shanghai Jiao Tong University. I interned with the Learned System Group @ AWS Redshift.

Email: hanwen_liu [at] usc.edu Google Scholar GitHub LinkedIn

News

  1. paper

    One journal paper on self-evolving LLM-based query optimization was accepted at the VLDB Journal

  2. paper

    One full paper on real-time quantum-augmented database optimization was accepted at VLDB 2026

  3. paper

    One workshop paper on quantum tensor-network was accepted at QCDKM@VLDB 2026

  4. paper

    One tutorial on quantum computing and databases was accepted at VLDB 2026 Tutorial

  5. paper

    One demo paper on boundary-aware QUBO fusion was accepted at VLDB 2026 Demo

Publications

Research Directions

AI/ML + LLMs ↔ Database Systems Self-Evolving and Trustworthy learned query optimization.
Quantum Computing ↔ Data Management Systems Quantum Computing Applications, Algorithms, and Systems.
14
All Papers
13
First-Author Papers
5
Accepted Full Papers

Accepted Full Papers

2026

SEFRQO-Plus: A Self-Evolving Query Optimizer via Large Language Models and Retrieval-Augmented Generation

Hanwen Liu, Qihan Zhang, Ryan Marcus, Ibrahim Sabek

AI/LLM for Database Systems
VLDB Journal Journal

QDBO: A Real-time Quantum-augmented Database System Optimizer

Hanwen Liu, Abhishek Kumar, Federico Spedalieri, Ibrahim Sabek

Quantum-Augmented Database Systems
VLDB 2026 Full Paper
Code

Quantum-Ready Approximate Data Management using Tensor-Network Physical Pages

Muzhi Chen, Hanwen Liu, Xuanhe Zhou, Hongming Xu, Zhenghao Li, Wei Zhou, Fan Wu

Quantum-Augmented Database Systems
QCDKM@VLDB 2026 Workshop

How Can Quantum Computing and Databases Meet "in Practice"? From Algorithms to Systems

Hanwen Liu, Yiran Li, Ibrahim Sabek, Xuanhe Zhou, Hans-Arno Jacobsen

Quantum-Augmented Database Systems
VLDB 2026 Tutorial

QFusion: A Demonstration of Boundary-Aware Fusion Planning and Execution for Large-Scale QUBO Optimization

Hanwen Liu, Ibrahim Sabek

Quantum-Augmented Database Systems
VLDB 2026 Demo

2025

2024

Professional Experience

  1. Applied Scientist Intern May 2026 - Aug 2026 AWS Redshift Seattle, USA
    • Topic: Root Cause Analysis (RCA) Agent Systems
  2. Applied Scientist Intern May 2025 - Aug 2025 Learned System Group @ AWS Redshift Palo Alto, USA

    Worked with Prof. Tim Kraska's group on AWS Redshift and Agentic AI.

    • Topic: Query Rewrite via LLM
  3. Software Development Engineer Intern Mar 2024 - May 2024 Amazon Berlin, Germany
  4. Full Stack Software Intern Aug 2022 - Jan 2023 BMW Group Munich, Germany

Mentorship

I mentor and collaborate with students on database systems and applied AI research. Their success is my success.

Academic Service

Teaching

Life

Outside research, the world is beautiful ✈️ 📷 🏂 🌍

Night sky photographed by Hanwen Liu
Night Sky
Mount Gongga landscape photographed by Hanwen Liu
Mount Gongga
Lake Lugu landscape photographed by Hanwen Liu
Lake Lugu
Huangshan landscape photographed by Hanwen Liu
Huangshan
Water landscape photographed by Hanwen Liu
Water and Light
Freimann sign photographed by Hanwen Liu
Dream Starts