EDBT 2026 Demo / reviewers in the wild / expert
Tara Akhound-Sadegh
dblp:358/6565
· DBLP profile ↗
6ranked-venue papers
3as first author
6since 2021 · last 2025
—ORCID · none
Domains — the database's venue-derived domains; a paper can count in several
Artificial intelligence and machine learning · 6 · 3 first-author · 6 since 2021
Expertise — from the expertise taxonomy: the topics of the expert's papers under the CCF categories. A weight counts papers with recency: 1 for a paper about the topic, 0.3 when the topic is its context, halved every five years.
| Artificial intelligence
6 papers |
Generative modeling · 66% Probabilistic and Bayesian machine learning · 31% Language models and text generation · 2% | |
| Interdisciplinary, comprehensive, and emerging computing
4 papers |
Computational science and engineering · 56% Bioinformatics and computational biology · 44% |
Topics — the 21 heaviest of 21, each with the papers that count most for it
| Topic | Weight | Papers | Last | Evidence papers |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Machine learning › Generative modeling
diffusion model |
2.5 | 3 | 2025 | Progressive Inference-Time Annealing of Diffusion Models for Sampling from Boltzmann Densities · NeurIPS 2025 Feynman-Kac Correctors in Diffusion: Annealing, Guidance, and Product of Experts · ICML 2025 Iterated Denoising Energy Matching for Sampling from Boltzmann Densities · ICML 2024 |
Machine learning › Probabilistic and Bayesian machine learning › monte carlo methods
sequential monte carlo |
1.7 | 2 | 2025 | Progressive Inference-Time Annealing of Diffusion Models for Sampling from Boltzmann Densities · NeurIPS 2025 Feynman-Kac Correctors in Diffusion: Annealing, Guidance, and Product of Experts · ICML 2025 |
Machine learning › Probabilistic and Bayesian machine learning
boltzmann density sampling |
1.6 | 2 | 2025 | Progressive Inference-Time Annealing of Diffusion Models for Sampling from Boltzmann Densities · NeurIPS 2025 Iterated Denoising Energy Matching for Sampling from Boltzmann Densities · ICML 2024 |
Machine learning › Generative modeling › diffusion model
diffusion sampling |
1.6 | 2 | 2025 | Progressive Inference-Time Annealing of Diffusion Models for Sampling from Boltzmann Densities · NeurIPS 2025 Iterated Denoising Energy Matching for Sampling from Boltzmann Densities · ICML 2024 |
Machine learning › Generative modeling
flow matching |
1.5 | 2 | 2024 | Sequence-Augmented SE(3)-Flow Matching For Conditional Protein Generation · NeurIPS 2024 SE(3)-Stochastic Flow Matching for Protein Backbone Generation · ICLR 2024 |
Machine learning › Generative modeling › diffusion model › guided diffusion
classifier-free guidance |
0.9 | 1 | 2025 | Feynman-Kac Correctors in Diffusion: Annealing, Guidance, and Product of Experts · ICML 2025 |
Machine learning › Generative modeling › diffusion model › guided diffusion
inference-time guidance |
0.9 | 1 | 2025 | Feynman-Kac Correctors in Diffusion: Annealing, Guidance, and Product of Experts · ICML 2025 |
Machine learning › Probabilistic and Bayesian machine learning
sampling |
0.9 | 1 | 2025 | Feynman-Kac Correctors in Diffusion: Annealing, Guidance, and Product of Experts · ICML 2025 |
Machine learning › Generative modeling › flow matching
protein backbone generation |
0.8 | 1 | 2024 | SE(3)-Stochastic Flow Matching for Protein Backbone Generation · ICLR 2024 |
Machine learning › Generative modeling
score matching |
0.8 | 1 | 2024 | Iterated Denoising Energy Matching for Sampling from Boltzmann Densities · ICML 2024 |
Bioinformatics and computational biology
generative modeling |
0.8 | 1 | 2024 | SE(3)-Stochastic Flow Matching for Protein Backbone Generation · ICLR 2024 |
Bioinformatics and computational biology › protein design
protein structure design |
0.8 | 1 | 2024 | SE(3)-Stochastic Flow Matching for Protein Backbone Generation · ICLR 2024 |
Bioinformatics and computational biology › protein design
protein structure generation |
0.8 | 1 | 2024 | Sequence-Augmented SE(3)-Flow Matching For Conditional Protein Generation · NeurIPS 2024 |
Computational science and engineering › partial differential equation solver
neural PDE solver |
0.7 | 1 | 2023 | Lie Point Symmetry and Physics-Informed Networks · NeurIPS 2023 |
Computational science and engineering
partial differential equations |
0.7 | 1 | 2023 | Lie Point Symmetry and Physics-Informed Networks · NeurIPS 2023 |
Computational science and engineering › scientific machine learning › physics-informed machine learning
physics-informed neural networks |
0.7 | 1 | 2023 | Lie Point Symmetry and Physics-Informed Networks · NeurIPS 2023 |
Computational science and engineering
scientific machine learning |
0.7 | 1 | 2023 | Lie Point Symmetry and Physics-Informed Networks · NeurIPS 2023 |
Machine learning › Generative modeling
molecular generation |
0.3 | 1 | 2025 | Feynman-Kac Correctors in Diffusion: Annealing, Guidance, and Product of Experts · ICML 2025 |
Natural language and speech › Language models and text generation › neural language model
protein language model |
0.2 | 1 | 2024 | Sequence-Augmented SE(3)-Flow Matching For Conditional Protein Generation · NeurIPS 2024 |
Computational science and engineering › computational chemistry
molecular simulation |
0.2 | 1 | 2024 | Iterated Denoising Energy Matching for Sampling from Boltzmann Densities · ICML 2024 |
Machine learning › Deep learning architectures and training
symmetry-aware learning |
0.2 | 1 | 2023 | Lie Point Symmetry and Physics-Informed Networks · NeurIPS 2023 |
Methods — techniques the papers use, named apart from their topics
sequential monte carlo · 1.7annealing · 1.7stochastic optimization · 1.5simulation-free training · 1.5riemannian optimal transport · 1.5flow matching · 1.5SE(3) flow matching · 1.5feynman-kac formula · 0.9diffusion smoothing · 0.9Feynman-Kac PDE · 0.9reinforcement fine-tuning · 0.8protein language model · 0.8geometric transformer · 0.8symmetry loss · 0.7physics-informed loss · 0.7
| Year | Publication | Venue | Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | Feynman-Kac Correctors in Diffusion: Annealing, Guidance, and Product of ExpertsabstractWhile score-based generative models are the model of choice across diverse domains, there are limited tools available for controlling inference-time behavior in a principled manner, e.g. for composing multiple pretrained models. Existing classifier-free guidance methods use a simple heuristic to mix conditional and unconditional scores to approximately sample from conditional distributions. However, such methods do not approximate the intermediate distributions, necessitating additional ‘corrector’ steps. In this work, we provide an efficient and principled method for sampling from a sequence of annealed, geometric-averaged, or product distributions derived from pretrained score-based models. We derive a weighted simulation scheme which we call Feynman-Kac Correctors (FKCs) based on the celebrated Feynman-Kac formula by carefully accounting for terms in the appropriate partial differential equations (PDEs). To simulate these PDEs, we propose Sequential Monte Carlo (SMC) resampling algorithms that leverage inference-time scaling to improve sampling quality. We empirically demonstrate the utility of our methods by proposing amortized sampling via inference-time temperature annealing, improving multi-objective molecule generation using pretrained models, and improving classifier-free guidance for text-to-image generation. Marta Skreta, Tara Akhound-Sadegh, Viktor Ohanesian, Roberto Bondesan, Alán Aspuru-Guzik, Arnaud Doucet, Rob Brekelmans, Alexander Tong 0001, Kirill Neklyudov |
ICML | 2 |
| 2025 | Progressive Inference-Time Annealing of Diffusion Models for Sampling from Boltzmann DensitiesabstractSampling efficiently from a target unnormalized probability density remains a core challenge, with relevance across countless high-impact scientific applications. A promising approach towards this challenge is the design of amortized samplers that borrow key ideas, such as probability path design, from state-of-the-art generative diffusion models. However, all existing diffusion-based samplers remain unable to draw samples from distributions at the scale of even simple molecular systems. In this paper, we propose Progressive Inference-Time Annealing (PITA) a novel framework to learn diffusion-based samplers that combines two complementary interpolation techniques: I.) Annealing of the Boltzmann distribution and II.) Diffusion smoothing. PITA trains a sequence of diffusion models from high to low temperatures by sequentially training each model at progressively higher temperatures, leveraging engineered easy access to samples of the temperature-annealed target density. In the subsequent step, PITA enables simulating the trained diffusion model to *procure training samples at a lower temperature* for the next diffusion model through inference-time annealing using a novel Feynman-Kac PDE combined with Sequential Monte Carlo. Empirically, PITA enables, for the first time, equilibrium sampling of $N$-body particle systems, Alanine Dipeptide, and tripeptides in Cartesian coordinates with dramatically lower energy function evaluations. Tara Akhound-Sadegh, Jungyoon Lee, Joey Bose, Valentin De Bortoli, Arnaud Doucet, Michael M. Bronstein, Dominique Beaini, Siamak Ravanbakhsh, Kirill Neklyudov, Alexander Tong 0001 |
NeurIPS | 1 |
| 2024 | SE(3)-Stochastic Flow Matching for Protein Backbone GenerationabstractThe computational design of novel protein structures has the potential to impact numerous scientific disciplines greatly. Toward this goal, we introduce \foldflow, a series of novel generative models of increasing modeling power based on the flow-matching paradigm over $3\mathrm{D}$ rigid motions---i.e. the group $\mathrm{SE(3)}$---enabling accurate modeling of protein backbones. We first introduce $\text{FoldFlow-Base}$, a simulation-free approach to learning deterministic continuous-time dynamics and matching invariant target distributions on $\mathrm{SE(3)}$. We next accelerate training by incorporating Riemannian optimal transport to create $\text{FoldFlow-OT}$, leading to the construction of both more simple and stable flows. Finally, we design \foldflowsfm, coupling both Riemannian OT and simulation-free training to learn stochastic continuous-time dynamics over $\mathrm{SE(3)}$. Our family of $\text{FoldFlow}$, generative models offers several key advantages over previous approaches to the generative modeling of proteins: they are more stable and faster to train than diffusion-based approaches, and our models enjoy the ability to map any invariant source distribution to any invariant target distribution over $\mathrm{SE(3)}$. Empirically, we validate $\text{FoldFlow}$, on protein backbone generation of up to $300$ amino acids leading to high-quality designable, diverse, and novel samples. Joey Bose, Tara Akhound-Sadegh, Guillaume Huguet, Kilian Fatras, Jarrid Rector-Brooks, Cheng-Hao Liu, Andrei Cristian Nica, Maksym Korablyov, Michael M. Bronstein, Alexander Tong 0001 |
ICLR | 2 |
| 2024 | Iterated Denoising Energy Matching for Sampling from Boltzmann DensitiesabstractEfficiently generating statistically independent samples from an unnormalized probability distribution, such as equilibrium samples of many-body systems, is a foundational problem in science. In this paper, we propose Iterated Denoising Energy Matching (iDEM), an iterative algorithm that uses a novel stochastic score matching objective leveraging solely the energy function and its gradient---and no data samples---to train a diffusion-based sampler. Specifically, iDEM alternates between (I) sampling regions of high model density from a diffusion-based sampler and (II) using these samples in our stochastic matching objective to further improve the sampler. iDEM is scalable to high dimensions as the inner matching objective, is *simulation-free*, and requires no MCMC samples. Moreover, by leveraging the fast mode mixing behavior of diffusion, iDEM smooths out the energy landscape enabling efficient exploration and learning of an amortized sampler. We evaluate iDEM on a suite of tasks ranging from standard synthetic energy functions to invariant $n$-body particle systems. We show that the proposed approach achieves state-of-the-art performance on all metrics and trains $2-5\times$ faster, which allows it to be the first method to train using energy on the challenging $55$-particle Lennard-Jones system. Tara Akhound-Sadegh, Jarrid Rector-Brooks, Joey Bose, Sarthak Mittal, Pablo Lemos, Cheng-Hao Liu, Marcin Sendera, Siamak Ravanbakhsh, Gauthier Gidel, Yoshua Bengio, Nikolay Malkin, Alexander Tong 0001 |
ICML | 1 |
| 2024 | Sequence-Augmented SE(3)-Flow Matching For Conditional Protein GenerationabstractProteins are essential for almost all biological processes and derive their diverse functions from complex $3 \rm D$ structures, which are in turn determined by their amino acid sequences.
In this paper, we exploit the rich biological inductive bias of amino acid sequences and introduce FoldFlow++, a novel sequence-conditioned $\text{SE}(3)$-equivariant flow matching model for protein structure generation. FoldFlow++ presents substantial new architectural features over the previous FoldFlow family of models including a protein large language model to encode sequence, a new multi-modal fusion trunk that combines structure and sequence representations, and a geometric transformer based decoder. To increase
diversity and novelty of generated samples -- crucial for de-novo drug design -- we
train FoldFlow++ at scale on a new dataset
that is an order of magnitude
larger than PDB datasets of prior works, containing both known proteins in PDB and high-quality synthetic structures achieved through filtering. We further demonstrate the ability to align FoldFlow++ to arbitrary rewards, e.g. increasing secondary structures diversity, by introducing a Reinforced Finetuning (ReFT) objective. We empirically observe that FoldFlow++ outperforms previous state-of-the-art protein structure-based generative models, improving over RFDiffusion in terms of unconditional generation across all metrics including designability, diversity, and novelty across all protein lengths, as well as exhibiting generalization on the task of equilibrium conformation sampling. Finally, we demonstrate that a fine-tuned FoldFlow++ makes progress on challenging conditional design tasks such as designing scaffolds for the VHH nanobody. Guillaume Huguet, James Vuckovic, Kilian Fatras, Eric Thibodeau-Laufer, Pablo Lemos, Riashat Islam, Cheng-Hao Liu, Jarrid Rector-Brooks, Tara Akhound-Sadegh, Michael M. Bronstein, Alexander Tong 0001, Joey Bose |
NeurIPS | 9 |
| 2023 | Lie Point Symmetry and Physics-Informed NetworksabstractSymmetries have been leveraged to improve the generalization of neural networks through different mechanisms from data augmentation to equivariant architectures. However, despite their potential, their integration into neural solvers for partial differential equations (PDEs) remains largely unexplored. We explore the integration of PDE symmetries, known as Lie point symmetries, in a major family of neural solvers known as physics-informed neural networks (PINNs). We propose a loss function that informs the network about Lie point symmetries in the same way that PINN models try to enforce the underlying PDE through a loss function. Intuitively, our symmetry loss ensures that the infinitesimal generators of the Lie group conserve the PDE solutions.. Effectively, this means that once the network learns a solution, it also learns the neighbouring solutions generated by Lie point symmetries.
Empirical evaluations indicate that the inductive bias introduced by the Lie point symmetries of the PDEs greatly boosts the sample efficiency of PINNs. Tara Akhound-Sadegh, Laurence Perreault Levasseur, Johannes Brandstetter, Max Welling, Siamak Ravanbakhsh |
NeurIPS | 1 |