Dana S. Nau

Dana S. Nau is a Professor in the Department of Computer Science and a member of the Institute for Systems Research at the University of Maryland. He is renowned for his contributions to automated planning and game theory, including landmark algorithms like SHOP and foundational studies on game-tree pathology and strategic planning in computer bridge. With over 500 refereed publications and an H-index of 61, his work bridges theoretical computer science and practical applications in multiagent systems and evolutionary game theory.

His research interests include hierarchical task network (HTN) planning, Bayesian network inference techniques, and the evolution of social norms through evolutionary game theory. Recent work focuses on spatial evolutionary games, surrogate Bayesian models, and strategic communication in multiagent environments.

• Awards: AAAI Fellow (202?), ACM Fellow (202?)
• Key Collaborations: Co-authored papers with leaders like Malik Ghallab (LAAS-CNRS), Satyandra K. Gupta (USC), and Vincent Hsiao (Bayesian networks research).
• Grants/Advising: Supervised students including Sunandita Patra (17+ joint papers) and Ruoxi Li, contributing to HTN planning and reinforcement learning advancements.

His labs and research teams actively explore AI planning systems, probabilistic reasoning, and the intersection of game theory with social science phenomena like gossip evolution.