معرفی
Cathy Wu is an Associate Professor at MIT, with affiliations in the Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems (LIDS), Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE), and Institute for Data, Systems, and Society (IDSS). Her research group focuses on integrating machine learning with model-based optimization to solve complex problems in transportation systems and cyber-physical systems.
- Academic Leadership: Class of 1954 Career Development Associate Professor (MIT)
- Research Grants: NSF CAREER Award, Amazon Robotics, Mathworks, MIT Mobility Initiative, US DOT, Microsoft Research, Cintra, Symbotic
Research Interests: Wu's work bridges AI and engineering challenges in transportation. Key areas include:
- Hybrid ML/Model-based Optimization (large neighborhood search, branch-and-cut)
- Sustainable Mobility (Project Greenwave, eco-driving)
- Multi-Agent Coordination (warehouse automation, cooperative driving)
- Cyber-Professional Systems (generalization in RL, transfer learning)
Recent work demonstrates significant advances in eco-driving (11-22% emissions reduction), large-scale multi-agent path finding (1000+ agents), and foundational RL methods for traffic control. Her group has produced 15+ major publications since 2015, with notable media coverage in Science, Wired, and NewScientist.
- Selected Scientific Awards
- NSF CAREER Award (2023)
- Ole Madsen Mentoring Award (2025)
- IEEE ITSS WiE/YP Fellowship (2024)
- Harold L. Hazen Teaching Award (2022)
Her lab has advised 12+ graduate students and postdocs, including:
- Vindula Jayawardana (PhD '24, now at Anthropic)
- Sirui Li (PhD '25, now at Microsoft Research)
- Yining Ma (Postdoc, active researcher)
- Zhongxia Yan (PhD '24, now at Anthropic)
