I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (jointly appointed with the Computer Science Department) at the University of Central Florida (UCF). I am also affiliated with the Artificial Intelligence Institute.
I received my Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from The State University of New York at Buffalo in 2023, under the advisement of Prof. Shaofeng Zou, and my B.S. in Mathematics from Nanjing University in 2019.
Prospective Students: I am looking for highly motivated Ph.D. students with strong backgrounds in mathematics, statistics, computer science, or electrical engineering. If you have a solid foundation in mathematical concepts and are interested in working with me, please send me an email with your CV and transcripts.
Research Interests
My research interests specialize in machine learning, with a primary focus on reinforcement learning (RL), optimization, and generative models. Below are some of the areas I am interested in:
- Theoretical and algorithmic foundations of reinforcement learning
- Game theory and multi-agent systems
- Optimization and Learning Theory
- Alignment and preference-based learning
- Robotics
News
- [2026] Zain and Debamita's paper is accepted by ICLR 2026; Another two papers are accepted by ICASSP and AISTATS. Congratulations!
- [2026] Our first paper on LLM fine-tuning is accepted by AAMAS 2026 as an Extended Abstract.
- [2026] Two papers are accepted by AAAI 2026 (acceptance rate 17.6%, one selected as Oral).
- [2025] Two papers are accepted by ICML 2025. Congratulations to Zachary and Chi!
- [2025] "Model-Free Offline Reinforcement Learning with Enhanced Robustness" is accepted by ICLR 2025.
- [2024] "A Unified Principle of Pessimism for Offline Reinforcement Learning under Model Mismatch" is accepted by NeurIPS 2024.
- [2024] "Non-Asymptotic Analysis for Single-Loop (Natural) Actor-Critic with Compatible Function Approximation" is accepted by ICML 2024.
- [2024] "Model-Free Robust Reinforcement Learning with Sample Complexity Analysis" is accepted by UAI 2024.
Group
Ph.D. Students
- Shihab Ahmed (2023-Present)
- Zain Ulabedeen Farhat (2024-Present)
- Zachary Andrew Roch (2024-Present)
Postdocs
- Chi Zhang (Co-advised with George Atia, 2024-Present)
- Debamita Ghosh (Co-advised with George Atia, 2025-Present)
Undergraduate Students
- David Tang (Honors Thesis, 2025-Present)
- Marco M. Plasencia (Honors Thesis, 2024)