Find Academic Supervisors

Philip ThomasView profile

Associate Professor

• Artificial Intelligence
• Reinforcement Learning
• AI Safety
• +3 more

Philip Thomas is an Associate Professor and Doctoral Program Director at the Manning College of Information and Computer Sciences, University of Massachusetts Amherst. He leads the Autonomous Learning Lab (ALL) and co-founded the Reinforcement Learning Conference (RLC). His research focuses on reinforcement learning, AI safety, and algorithms that ensure safety guarantees for high-risk applications like healthcare and digital marketing. Education: PhD in Computer Science, University of Massachusetts Amherst (2015) MSc in Computer Science, Case Western Reserve University (2009) BSc in Computer Science, Case Western Reserve University (2008) Research Interests: Thomas specializes in designing biologically plausible reinforcement learning algorithms and ensuring safety through frameworks like Qualia Optimization and Seldonian Algorithms . His work emphasizes off-policy evaluation, fairness guarantees, and ethical AI. Recent projects include developing benchmarks for medical decision-making (e.g., ICU-Sepsis) and analyzing adversarial robustness in speech denoising models. Articles Trends: His recent work spans high-confidence policy evaluation, fairness metrics, and algorithmic safety. Key themes include improving benchmarking practices, rethinking eligibility traces, and leveraging state abstraction for consistent off-policy evaluation. Awards & Grants: Armstrong Award Co-PI on Army Research Grant (IoBT), NSF grant (FMitF) Significant funding from Adobe Research Advising & Grants: Thomas has overseen grants totaling millions and mentored students in reinforcement learning and AI safety. His current focus includes exploring qualia optimization for doctoral applications (2026-2027). Labs & Teams: He directs the Autonomous Learning Lab and collaborates on interdisciplinary projects at the Center for Data Science, emphasizing ethical AI and safe machine learning systems.

Alister SmithView profile

Associate Professor

• Geotechnical Monitoring
• Landslide Early Warning Systems
• Acoustic Emission Technology
• +2 more

Dr. Alister Smith is a Reader (Associate Professor) in Geotechnics at Loughborough University, where he directs the £1M National Engineered Slope Simulator (NESS) – the world’s first climate-controlled facility testing clay slope deterioration. His £6.7M research portfolio addresses geotechnical infrastructure resilience under climate change. Innovations include acoustic emission (AE) landslide early warning systems deployed across five continents, with the Community Slope SAFE project recognized in REF2021. Current work includes the RAINDROP doctoral training cluster on infrastructure prognosis and the £4.9M EPSRC ACHILLES programme on climate impacts. Awards: Philip Leverhulme Prize, ICE Thomas Telford Premium (twice), and Hawley Award for Engineering Innovation. He serves on the Lilly Fellows Program Board and edits for the International Journal of Christianity and Education.

• Energy Efficiency
• Waste Heat Recovery
• Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC)
• +7 more

Dr. Muhammad Imran is a Reader and Lecturer in Mechanical, Biomedical & Design Engineering at Aston University, UK. He is affiliated with the Energy and Bioproducts Research Institute (EBRI) and the College of Engineering and Physical Sciences. His research focuses on energy efficiency, waste heat recovery, and low-temperature power cycles such as Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) and Supercritical CO₂ systems. He has contributed to the commercialization of ORC systems and collaborates internationally on hybrid energy systems, solar-thermal integration, and district heating networks. Dr. Imran holds a PhD in Energy System Engineering (2016), MSc in Thermal Power Engineering (2012), and BEng in Mechanical Engineering (2009). He has held academic roles at institutions in Pakistan, South Korea, and Denmark, including a Marie Curie Fellowship at the Technical University of Denmark. His awards include the Marie Curie Fellowship (EU), Innovation Award (South Asia Triple Helix), and multiple Research Excellence Awards from South Korea. He leads funded projects on hybrid energy systems for agriculture, waste heat recovery in industries, and sustainable energy solutions in developing countries. His editorial roles include associate editorships in Frontiers in Thermal Engineering and Resources, Environment and Sustainability . He supervises PhD students in renewable energy and low-temperature thermodynamic systems, with ongoing projects on solid-state heat pumps and advanced ORC control strategies. Dr. Imran’s work bridges engineering, data science, and environmental science to address energy challenges. Notable collaborations include projects in Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, and Sudan, focusing on off-grid cold storage, smart irrigation, and biomass energy systems. His research outputs include over 130 peer-reviewed articles, patents, and contributions to international conferences.

Hamsa BastaniView profile

Associate Professor

• Machine Learning
• Artificial Intelligence
• Healthcare Operations
• +5 more

Hamsa Bastani is an Associate Professor of Operations, Information and Decisions at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, with a secondary appointment in Statistics and Data Science. She co-directs the Wharton Healthcare Analytics Lab and serves as an Associate Editor for Operations Research, M&SOM and OR Letters. Her academic journey began with summa cum laude graduation from Harvard in 2012 with an A.M. in physics and A.B. in physics and mathematics. She completed her PhD in Stanford's Electrical Engineering department under Mohsen Bayati, followed by a Herman Goldstine postdoctoral fellowship at IBM Research. Professor Bastani's research focuses on developing novel machine learning algorithms for data-driven decision-making, with applications spanning healthcare operations, social good, and revenue management. Her work demonstrates particular expertise in sequential decision-making (bandits, reinforcement learning), learning from auxiliary data sources (transfer learning, meta-learning), and designing effective human-AI interfaces (interpretability, fairness). She has made significant contributions to understanding how AI systems affect and augment human behavior, with the goal of designing AI tools that help humans thrive. Her publications reveal a strong trend toward high-impact applications of machine learning in critical societal domains. A significant portion of her recent work focuses on healthcare applications, including optimizing health supply chains in low- and middle-income countries, designing clinical trial protocols, and creating targeted public health interventions. Another major theme examines the complex relationship between humans and AI systems, particularly how AI affects learning outcomes and decision-making processes. Her work frequently bridges theoretical advances with practical implementation, as evidenced by country-scale deployments in Greece and Sierra Leone. Wagner Prize for Excellence in Operations Research Practice (2021) Pierskalla Award for Best Paper in Healthcare (2021, 2019, 2016) Behavioral OM Best Paper Award (2021) Public Sector in OR Best Paper Award (2024) INFORMS Data Mining Best Paper Award (2022) Wharton Teaching Excellence Award (2019, 2020, 2021) Professor Bastani has advised numerous PhD students who have gone on to prominent positions, including Pia Ramchandani (Director of Responsible AI at PwC), Arielle Anderer (Assistant Professor at Cornell Johnson), and Kan Xu (Assistant Professor at ASU Carey). Her research has been supported by collaborations with national governments, including the Greek government where she co-designed Eva, the national-scale reinforcement learning system for targeted COVID-19 testing, and the Government of Sierra Leone where she improved patient access to essential medicines by nearly 20% via decision-aware learning. She has also conducted the first large field study deploying generative AI tutors in high school math classes. She leads the Wharton Healthcare Analytics Lab and serves on the Steering Committee for the Penn Center for Health Incentives and Behavioral Economics and on the statistics advisory committee for the AHA Food is Medicine Initiative. Outside academia, she serves on the Workday AI Advisory Board, demonstrating her commitment to translating academic research into practical applications.

Nicolò Cesa-BianchiView profile

Professor

• Machine Learning
• Online Learning
• Multi-armed Bandit Problems
• +7 more

Nicolò Cesa-Bianchi is a Professor of Computer Science at the University of Milan, where he serves as head of the Computer Science programs. He is also associated with the Department of Electronics, Information and Bioengineering (DEIB) at Politecnico di Milano. Cesa-Bianchi holds significant leadership roles including Board member, Fellow and co-director of the Milan unit of the European Laboratory for Learning and Intelligent Systems (ELLIS), and membership in the prestigious Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei. He is also involved with The European Lighthouse on Secure and Safe AI (ELSA), The European Lighthouse of AI for Sustainability (ELIAS), and The FAIR foundation. Professor Cesa-Bianchi's research focuses on the theoretical foundations of machine learning, with special emphasis on sequential decision making and online learning algorithms. His work spans multiple areas including multi-armed bandit problems, regret analysis, prediction with expert advice, and learning on graphs. He has made significant contributions to understanding the theoretical limits of learning algorithms and developing efficient methods for various learning scenarios. His research has important applications in online markets, social networks, and bioinformatics. His monographs 'Prediction, Learning, and Games' and 'Regret Analysis of Stochastic and Nonstochastic Multi-armed Bandit Problems' are considered seminal works in the field. His recent publications demonstrate continued leadership in advancing the theoretical understanding of machine learning, with 2024-2025 papers covering cooperative online learning, multitask learning, fair trade mechanisms, and refined analyses of bandit algorithms. The research shows increasing focus on practical economic applications while maintaining strong theoretical foundations. Google Research Award Xerox Foundation UAC Award Member of the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei ELLIS Fellow Cesa-Bianchi has been deeply involved in academic service, having served as action editor for the Machine Learning Journal, IEEE Transactions on Information Theory, and the Journal of Machine Learning Research. He currently serves as associate editor for the Journal of Information and Inference and TheoretiCS. He has held leadership positions including President of the Association for Computational Learning and member of the steering committee for the EC-funded Network of Excellence PASCAL2. He was program chair of the 13th Annual Conference on Computational Learning Theory and the 13th International Conference on Algorithmic Learning Theory. He leads the Laboratory for AI and Learning Algorithms (ALGA) at the University of Milan, which focuses on theoretical and applied research in machine learning. His international collaborations are extensive, with visiting positions at UC Santa Cruz, Graz Technical University, Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris, Google, and Microsoft Research. As an educator, he teaches advanced courses including Reinforcement Learning and Statistical Methods for Machine Learning, and has supervised numerous students through the years.

Harish RavichandarView profile

Assistant Professor

• Robotics
• Machine Learning
• Human-Robot Interaction
• +2 more

Harish Ravichandar is an Assistant Professor at the School of Interactive Computing , Georgia Institute of Technology, and a core faculty member of the Institute for Robotics and Intelligent Machines (IRIM) . He leads the Structured Techniques for Algorithmic Robotics (STAR) Lab , focusing on structured computational frameworks and learning algorithms with inductive biases to enhance robot efficiency, reliability, and self-sufficiency in human-robot collaboration and complex applications like dexterous manipulation and multi-agent coordination. His research bridges robot learning , human-robot interaction , and multi-agent systems , emphasizing stable, frugal, and safe skill acquisition from human demonstrations. Key themes include intention inference , trajectory optimization , and heterogeneous team coordination , often leveraging Koopman operators , hypernetworks , and graph-based methods . Scientific recognition includes the NSF CAREER Award , IEEE MRS Best Paper Award , and Georgia Tech’s College of Computing Outstanding Post-Doctoral Research Award . His work also received the ASME DSCC Best Student Paper Award and P&W Institute Graduate Fellowship . Harish’s educational background includes a Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Connecticut (2018) , an M.S. from the University of Florida (2014) , and a B.E. in Instrumentation and Control Engineering from Anna University (2012) . He previously held postdoctoral and research scientist roles at Georgia Tech before his current position.

İbrahim AkdumanView profile

Professor

• Image Processing
• Communication
• Microwave Imaging
• +3 more

Prof. Dr. İbrahim Akduman is a Professor at the Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering , Istanbul Technical University , specializing in microwave imaging and biomedical applications. His research spans antenna engineering, dielectric property analysis, and microwave hyperthermia systems.

David AlldredView profile

Professor

• Medicines Optimisation
• Patient Safety
• Deprescribing
• +5 more

Professor David Alldred is a Professor of Medicines Use and Safety at the University of Leeds' School of Healthcare, within the Faculty of Medicine and Health. His expertise spans medicines optimisation, patient safety, deprescribing, and care home medication management. He leads key research initiatives such as the NIHR Yorkshire and Humber Patient Safety Research Collaboration's 'Decluttering Safely for Safety' theme and co-leads the School of Healthcare's Quality and Safety research theme. Education: PhD (clinical research on care home medication review), MSc in Clinical Pharmacy, PGCert in Learning and Teaching, and BPharm (Hons). Professional memberships include Fellowships of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society and the Higher Education Academy. Research focuses on improving medication use for older adults in care homes and underserved populations, employing systematic reviews, qualitative studies, and RCTs. Notable projects include the CHUMS study (Department of Health-funded medication error analysis in care homes) and leadership roles in NIHR Programme Grants like CHIPPS and CHARMER. He collaborates with NHS England to implement medicines optimisation programs and co-designed multilingual medication review resources to reduce health inequalities. Awards include the Pharmacy Practice UK Research Award (2015) and NIHR Senior Investigator status (2025). His work emphasizes translating evidence into clinical practice, with over 150 publications and supervising NIHR-funded doctoral students in critical care, diabetes, cystic fibrosis, and geriatrics. Led the Care Homes' Use of Medicines Study (CHUMS), contributed to NICE guidelines for care home medicines management, and developed interventions like the Medicines at Transitions Intervention (MaTI) for heart failure patients. His research themes address polypharmacy reduction, medication safety across care transitions, and pharmacist-led deprescribing strategies.

Calin BeltaView profile

Professor

• Control Theory
• Cyber-Physical Systems
• Formal Methods
• +5 more

Calin Belta is the Brendan Iribe Endowed Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Maryland, College Park. He is affiliated with the Institute of Systems Research (ISR) and the Maryland Robotics Center (MRC), and holds a Research Professor position at Boston University's College of Engineering. His work bridges control theory, formal methods, and machine learning to ensure safety in cyber-physical and data-driven systems, with applications in robotics, autonomous driving, and systems biology. Research Interests: Focus on dynamics and control theory, formal methods for verification and control synthesis, robotics, autonomous systems, and synthetic biology. Recent projects include PROGENIC (collaborating with MIT, UChicago, and UDelaware) and safety-critical control for heterogeneous robotic teams. Key Achievements: General Chair of the 2025 MRC Symposium, recipient of AFOSR Young Investigator Award (2008), NSF CAREER Award (2005), and IEEE Fellow. His work on formal methods for autonomous systems has led to impactful tools for safety assurance in robotics and AI. Grants: NSF EFRI PROGENIC grant (2024), multiple industry partnerships. Advising: Mentored students like Wenliang Liu (PhD 2024, now at Amazon), and collaborator Marius Kloetzer (shared HSCC Test of Time Award 2025). Labs/Teams: Maryland Robotics Center, Institute for Systems Research, and Boston University collaborations.

Giancarlo Ferrari TrecateView profile

Adjunct Professor

• Automatic control
• State estimation
• System identification
• +7 more

Giancarlo Ferrari Trecate is an Adjunct Professor at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL) , affiliated with the School of Engineering and the SCI-STI-GFT department. He is also involved in teaching and research through the STI-SGM and EDRS-ENS programs. Research Interests : Automatic control, state estimation, system identification, machine learning, distributed control, hybrid systems, microgrids, biochemical networks, voltage and frequency stabilization in AC/DC microgrids. Publications Trends : His recent work focuses on integrating Neural ODEs and Hamiltonian structures for stable control systems, regret minimization in distributed control, and robust state estimation under uncertainty. Applications include autonomous mobility-on-demand , power grid optimization , and secure microgrid control against cyber-attacks. Scientific Awards : No specific awards mentioned in the provided data. Teaching & Advising : He supervises PhD students in mechanical engineering and teaches courses on Multivariable control and Networked control systems . His lab, DECODE , specializes in Dependable Control and Decision systems.

Lucas JansonView profile

Associate Professor

• High-Dimensional Inference
• Statistical Machine Learning
• Reinforcement Learning
• +4 more

Lucas Janson is an Associate Professor of Statistics and Affiliate in Computer Science at Harvard University. He leads the Harvard Statistical Consulting Service, supervising PhD students advising hundreds of researchers annually. His research focuses on high-dimensional inference, statistical machine learning, and applications in genetics, political science, and climatology. He teaches courses such as Statistical Inference I, Reinforcement Learning, and Statistical Machine Learning. His work bridges theoretical advancements with practical applications, including contributions to robotics motion planning and microbiome data analysis. Key research areas include variable importance inference, safe reinforcement learning, compositional data analysis, and robust paleoclimate reconstructions. His methodologies are implemented in software packages like Floodgate, EigenPrism, and Fast Marching Tree (FMT*). He advises a dynamic group of PhD students and has mentored alumni now in academia and industry roles. Notable contributions include the development of model-X knockoffs for controlled variable selection, conditional randomization tests, and optimization algorithms for adaptive control systems. His work emphasizes statistical rigor while addressing real-world challenges in healthcare, environmental science, and robotics.

• Machine Learning Ethics
• Philosophy of Science
• Interpretability in AI
• +5 more

Thomas Grote is a Research Fellow at the University of Tübingen's Ethics and Philosophy Lab within the Cluster of Excellence 'Machine Learning: New Perspectives for Science'. His research focuses on philosophical and ethical dimensions of artificial intelligence, particularly interpretability, fairness, and reliability in medical and social contexts. He co-supervises the Carl-Zeiss-Stiftung-funded project 'Certification and Foundations of Safe Machine Learning Systems in Healthcare' and co-organizes the 'Philosophy of Science Meets Machine Learning' conference series. Research Focus Grote's interdisciplinary work bridges philosophy of science and applied AI ethics. Key areas include: Methodological foundations of AI ethics and epistemology Clinical reliability and safety of ML systems Fairness metrics in sociotechnical healthcare systems Interpretability requirements for medical AI Computational psychiatry and evolving mental health frameworks His recent publications demonstrate strong emphasis on healthcare applications, with critical analyses of reliability in foundation models, ethical paradigms for LLMs, and rethinking evaluation methodologies at the epistemology-ethics interface.

Tyler H. SummersView profile

Assistant Professor

• Feedback Control
• Optimization in Complex Dynamical Networks
• Electric Power Networks
• +4 more

Dr. Tyler H. Summers is an Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Texas at Dallas (UTD), with an affiliate appointment in Electrical Engineering. He holds a PhD in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin (2010) and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at ETH Zurich (2011–2015). His research focuses on feedback control and optimization in complex dynamical networks, including electric power grids and distributed robotics. Key contributions include stochastic optimal power flow methods, distributed formation control algorithms, and robust control design under uncertainty. Education: PhD in Aerospace Engineering (University of Texas at Austin, 2010) M.S. in Aerospace Engineering (University of Texas at Austin, 2007) B.S. in Mechanical Engineering (Texas Christian University, 2004) His research interests emphasize theoretical and computational tools for cyber-physical systems, including power networks and robotic teams. Notable achievements include a NSF CAREER Award ($500K) and an Army YIP grant ($350K). He leads the Control, Optimization, and Networks (COIN) Lab, which develops algorithms for robust control and distributed optimization. Recent work addresses challenges in integrating renewable energy into power systems and enabling safe autonomous robotics in uncertain environments. Grants and projects involve collaborations with institutions like the University of Melbourne and the Australian National University. Grants & Awards: NSF CAREER Award (2021) Army Research Office YIP (2017) Air Force Office of Scientific Research (2019) Lab & Team: The COIN Lab focuses on interdisciplinary projects involving students and postdocs in control theory, robotics, and optimization.

Aaron RothView profile

Professor

• Algorithms
• Machine Learning
• Differential Privacy
• +10 more

Aaron Roth is the Henry Salvatori Professor of Computer and Cognitive Science at the University of Pennsylvania, affiliated with the Department of Computer and Information Science in the School of Engineering and Applied Science. He holds a secondary appointment in the Department of Statistics and Data Science at the Wharton School and is associated with several research centers including PRiML, the Warren Center for Network and Data Sciences, and the AMCS program. He received his PhD from Carnegie Mellon University under Avrim Blum and was a postdoc at Microsoft Research New England. His research focuses on algorithms and machine learning, particularly in private data analysis, fairness in machine learning, game theory, mechanism design, and learning theory. His work bridges theoretical computer science with societal concerns, advocating for ethically aware algorithm design. He co-authored the book The Ethical Algorithm with Michael Kearns, which explores how to embed social values like privacy and fairness into algorithmic systems. His recent publications show a strong trend toward uncertainty quantification, multicalibration, conformal prediction, and fairness in reinforcement learning and high-dimensional settings. He frequently publishes in top-tier venues such as STOC, FOCS, ICML, NeurIPS, and COLT, often with a focus on rigorous theoretical foundations with practical implications. Hans Sigrist Prize Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship NSF CAREER award Google Faculty Research Award Amazon Research Award Yahoo Academic Career Enhancement award Roth has advised numerous PhD students and postdocs, many of whom now hold academic or industry research positions. He is also an Amazon Scholar at AWS and has served in advisory roles for companies like Apple, Facebook, Leapyear, and Spectrum Labs. He has been active in organizing workshops and tutorials on differential privacy, fairness, and adaptive data analysis, and has given keynotes at major conferences and institutions worldwide. He leads research groups and collaborates widely across Penn, focusing on responsible AI, privacy, and algorithmic fairness. His lab produces foundational work on calibration, unlearning, privacy-preserving learning, and equitable decision-making systems.

Edwin OlsonView profile

Associate Professor

• Robotics
• Autonomy
• Perception Algorithms
• +5 more

Edwin Olson is an Associate Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Michigan, where he directs the APRIL Robotics Lab. He also serves as CEO of May Mobility Inc., a company focused on developing driverless shuttles. His research spans autonomy, perception, robotics, and learning, with notable contributions to technologies like AprilTags and the LCM middleware. Olson has led groundbreaking projects, including the 2010 MAGIC competition-winning robot team and the DARPA Urban Challenge. He has been recognized with awards such as Popular Science's 'Brilliant Ten' (2012), the DARPA Young Faculty Award (2013), and the College of Engineering Education Excellence Award (2015). His work emphasizes real-world applications of autonomous systems, including risk assessment, multi-policy decision making, and sensor fusion. Recent articles focus on autonomous agent behavior prediction, remote assistance systems, and infrastructure calibration. Olson's academic contributions are complemented by industry roles, including his tenure at Toyota Research Institute as Co-Director for Autonomous Driving Development. Education: PhD in Computer Science from MIT (2008) Key Projects: MAGIC 2010, DARPA Urban Challenge, Toyota Research Institute Labs: APRIL Robotics Lab Awards: DARPA Young Faculty Award, Brilliant Ten, Education Excellence Award