diff --git a/backends/huggingface_local_api.py b/backends/huggingface_local_api.py
index e9fac6abc831feaacd4e995bf795bba1ef8f8f82..678cc5ed094c07641451e3c1086f3f18e5e4067f 100644
--- a/backends/huggingface_local_api.py
+++ b/backends/huggingface_local_api.py
@@ -36,6 +36,8 @@ MODEL_DEEPSEEK_67B_CHAT = "deepseek-llm-67b-chat"
 MODEL_TULU_2_DPO_7B = "tulu-2-dpo-7b"
 MODEL_TULU_2_DPO_70B = "tulu-2-dpo-70b"
 MODEL_MIXTRAL_8X7B_INSTRUCT_V0_1 = "Mixtral-8x7B-Instruct-v0.1"
+MODEL_SUS_CHAT_34B = "SUS-Chat-34B"
+
 
 SUPPORTED_MODELS = [MODEL_MISTRAL_7B_INSTRUCT_V0_1, MODEL_RIIID_SHEEP_DUCK_LLAMA_2_70B_V1_1,
                     MODEL_RIIID_SHEEP_DUCK_LLAMA_2_13B, MODEL_FALCON_7B_INSTRUCT, MODEL_OPEN_ASSISTANT_12B,
@@ -43,7 +45,7 @@ SUPPORTED_MODELS = [MODEL_MISTRAL_7B_INSTRUCT_V0_1, MODEL_RIIID_SHEEP_DUCK_LLAMA
                     MODEL_LMSYS_VICUNA_13B, MODEL_LMSYS_VICUNA_33B, MODEL_LMSYS_VICUNA_7B, MODEL_GPT4ALL_13B_SNOOZY,
                     MODEL_CODELLAMA_34B_I, MODEL_ZEPHYR_7B_ALPHA, MODEL_ZEPHYR_7B_BETA, MODEL_OPENCHAT_3_5,
                     MODEL_YI_34B_CHAT, MODEL_DEEPSEEK_7B_CHAT, MODEL_DEEPSEEK_67B_CHAT, MODEL_TULU_2_DPO_7B,
-                    MODEL_TULU_2_DPO_70B, MODEL_MIXTRAL_8X7B_INSTRUCT_V0_1]
+                    MODEL_TULU_2_DPO_70B, MODEL_MIXTRAL_8X7B_INSTRUCT_V0_1, MODEL_SUS_CHAT_34B]
 
 
 NAME = "huggingface"
@@ -82,6 +84,9 @@ tulu_template = "{% for message in messages %}\n{% if message['role'] == 'user'
 DEEPSEEK = [MODEL_DEEPSEEK_7B_CHAT, MODEL_DEEPSEEK_67B_CHAT]
 # jinja template for deepseek format:
 deepseek_template = "{% if not add_generation_prompt is defined %}{% set add_generation_prompt = true %}{% endif %}{{ bos_token }}{% for message in messages %}{% if message['role'] == 'user' %}{{ 'User: ' + message['content'] + '\n\n' }}{% elif message['role'] == 'assistant' %}{{ 'Assistant: ' + message['content'] + eos_token }}{% elif message['role'] == 'system' %}{{ message['content'] + '\n\n' }}{% endif %}{% endfor %}{% if add_generation_prompt %}{{ 'Assistant:' }}{% endif %}"
+SUSTECH = [MODEL_SUS_CHAT_34B]
+sus_template = "{% for message in messages %}{% if message['role'] == 'user' %}{{ '### Human: ' + message['content'] + '\\n\\n' }}{% elif message['role'] == 'assistant' %}{{ '### Assistant: ' + message['content'] }}{% endif %}{% if loop.last %}{{ '### Assistant: ' }}{% endif %}{% endfor %}"
+
 
 # templates currently have 'generation prompt' hardcoded
 # doesn't matter for clembench, but once added, templates can be pushed to HF and this block can be reduced
@@ -89,7 +94,7 @@ deepseek_template = "{% if not add_generation_prompt is defined %}{% set add_gen
 # but transformers==4.34.0 does not support this feature (at least not reliably)
 
 # due to issues with differences between fast and slow HF tokenizer classes, some models require the 'slow' class/arg
-SLOW_TOKENIZER = [MODEL_YI_34B_CHAT, MODEL_ORCA_2_13B]
+SLOW_TOKENIZER = [MODEL_YI_34B_CHAT, MODEL_ORCA_2_13B, MODEL_SUS_CHAT_34B]
 
 
 class HuggingfaceLocal(backends.Backend):
@@ -142,6 +147,8 @@ class HuggingfaceLocal(backends.Backend):
             hf_user_prefix = "deepseek-ai/"
         elif model_name in [MODEL_TULU_2_DPO_7B, MODEL_TULU_2_DPO_70B]:  # allenai models
             hf_user_prefix = "allenai/"
+        elif model_name in [MODEL_SUS_CHAT_34B]:  # SUSTech models
+            hf_user_prefix = "SUSTech/"
 
         hf_model_str = f"{hf_user_prefix}{model_name}"
 
@@ -173,6 +180,9 @@ class HuggingfaceLocal(backends.Backend):
                 self.tokenizer.chat_template = tulu_template
             elif model_name in DEEPSEEK:
                 self.tokenizer.chat_template = deepseek_template
+            elif model_name in SUSTECH:
+                self.tokenizer.chat_template = sus_template
+
 
         # load all models using their default configuration:
         self.model = AutoModelForCausalLM.from_pretrained(hf_model_str, device_map="auto", torch_dtype="auto",
@@ -205,9 +215,17 @@ class HuggingfaceLocal(backends.Backend):
             logger.info(f"Finished loading huggingface model: {model}")
             logger.info(f"Model device map: {self.model.hf_device_map}")
 
+        # log current given messages list:
+        # logger.info(f"Raw messages passed: {messages}")
+
         # deepcopy messages to prevent reference issues:
         current_messages = copy.deepcopy(messages)
 
+        # cull empty system message:
+        if current_messages[0]['role'] == "system":
+            if not current_messages[0]['content']:
+                del current_messages[0]
+
         # flatten consecutive user messages:
         for msg_idx, message in enumerate(current_messages):
             if msg_idx > 0 and message['role'] == "user" and current_messages[msg_idx - 1]['role'] == "user":
@@ -217,6 +235,9 @@ class HuggingfaceLocal(backends.Backend):
                 current_messages[msg_idx - 1]['content'] += f" {message['content']}"
                 del current_messages[msg_idx]
 
+        # log current flattened messages list:
+        # logger.info(f"Flattened messages: {current_messages}")
+
         # apply chat template & tokenize:
         prompt_tokens = self.tokenizer.apply_chat_template(current_messages, return_tensors="pt")
         prompt_tokens = prompt_tokens.to(self.device)
@@ -271,6 +292,9 @@ class HuggingfaceLocal(backends.Backend):
             # remove DeepSeek EOS token at the end of output:
             if response_text[-19:len(response_text)] == "<｜end▁of▁sentence｜>":
                 response_text = response_text[:-19]
+            # remove SUS EOS token at the end of output:
+            if response_text[-13:len(response_text)] == "<|endoftext|>":
+                response_text = response_text[:-13]
 
         else:
             response_text = model_output.strip()