MINDS Lab

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Welcome to the Multi-agent Intelligence and Decision Systems (MINDS) lab. Our goal is to incorporate analytical models of human decision making in the design of socio-technical networks and AI systems, to understand how the interactions of humans and/or AI agents with misaligned (economic) incentives and diverse reasoning capabilities can impact these systems. We are particularly interested in the balance between “economic” goals (performance, robustness) and “ethical” considerations (fairness, explainability, and safety) in the design and use of AI systems with (strategic) human in the loop. We contribute to, and draw from, tools and methods in several disciplines, including network economics, game theory, machine learning, optimization, and control theory. Our work is generously supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF), Amazon, and Cisco.

If you are a student interested in joining our group, please see this note.

Group Members

PhD Students

	Yifan Yang (OSU ISE PhD, Spring 2020 - ) [Homepage] Yifan is a PhD student in Integrated System Engineering at The Ohio State University. He obtained his MSc in Statistics from Georgia Tech, and dual BSc degrees in Mathematics and Economics from University of Washington, Seattle. His main research interests lie in decision making under uncertainty, data analytics, and optimization, with a focus on statistical data debiasing algorithms for fair algorithmic decision making.
	Sura Alhanouti (OSU ISE PhD, Autumn 2021 - ) [LinkedIn] Sura is a PhD student in Integrated Systems Engineering at The Ohio State University. She received her BSc in Industrial Engineering from Jordan University of Science and Technology. Her research is at the intersection of data analytics, algorithmic decision making, and game theory.
	Raman Ebrahimi (UCSD ECE PhD, Fall 2022 - ) [Homepage][LinkedIn] Raman is a PhD student in Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of California, San Diego. Prior to joining our group, he received his BSc degrees in Industrial Engineering and Physics from the Sharif University of Technology in 2022. He joined our group at OSU in Fall 2022, and moved to UCSD in Summer 2023. His research interests are at the intersection of network economics, game theory, network science, and computational social science.
	Atefeh Mollabagher (UCSD ECE PhD, Fall 2023 - ) [LinkedIn] Atefeh is a PhD student in Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of California, San Diego. Prior to joining our group, she received her BSc degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Tehran in 2023. Her research is on multi-agent reinforcement learning.
	Yiqiao Liao (UCSD ECE PhD, Fall 2024 - ) Yiqiao is a PhD student in Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of California, San Diego. Prior to joining our group, he received his MSc degree in Computer Science from UPenn in 2024.

Undergraduate Students

Taiki Yoshino (UCSD CSE BSc, Winter 2024 - ) [LinkedIn]

Taiki joined our group during his sophomore year in Computer Science and Engineering at UCSD. He is conducting independent research on the impacts of data biases in fair federated learning.

Keng-Lien (Roger) Lin (UCSD ECE BSc, Spring 2024 - )

Roger joined our group during his junior year in Electrical and Computer Engineering at UCSD. He is part of the Spring/Summer Research Internship Program (SRIP). As part of his independent research during this program, he is developing new agent-based simulation tools to study multilayer networks, with a focus on the spread of misinformation on multiplex networks.

Past PhD Students

Pradeep Sharma Oruganti (OSU MAE PhD, Autumn 2021 - Spring 2023) [LinkedIn]

Pradeep was a PhD student in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at The Ohio State University. He was co-advised by Dr. Qadeer Ahmed and Dr. Naghizadeh. His research in our group was on game theoretical modeling and analysis of security decision making in cyber physical systems, with applications in automotive cyber security. He completed a PhD thesis on "Safety and Security Assurance for Automotive Systems". Next: Cruise.

Past MSc Students

	Altan Turkoglu (OSU ECE MSc, Spring 2022 - Spring 2023) [Google Scholar] Altan was a master's student in the ECE department at The Ohio State University. He completed his MSc thesis on "Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning and Information Sharing". Altan's other research interests are in computational biology and bioinformatics. He plans to leverage data analytic methods at medical school in the future. Next: M.D./Ph.D. at OSU.
	Abhishek Vijaykumar (OSU ECE MSc, Spring 2021 - Spring 2022) [Homepage][LinkedIn] Abhishek was a Master's student in the ECE department at The Ohio State University. His research interests are at the intersection of machine learning and signal processing. He completed the MSc project "Recursive A-Scores: A Framework for Algorithmically Fair Feature Selection" on automated feature selection for algorithmic fairness. Next: Micron Technology.
	Xue Zheng (OSU ECE MSc, Spring 2021 - Autumn 2021) [Homepage][LinkedIn] Xue was an MSc student in our group at The Ohio State University from Spring 2021 through Autumn 2021, where she completed her M.Sc. thesis on "Learning Directed Collaboration Graphs for Peer-to-Peer Personalized Learning". Her research interests are in federated learning, distributed learning, and optimization. Next: ECE PhD student at OSU. Publications: X. Zheng, P. Naghizadeh, A. Yener. "DiPLe: Learning Directed Collaboration Graphs for Peer-to-Peer Personalized Learning", in ITW 2022.

Past BSc Students

Ishika Gupta. OSU ECE BSc, Summer 2023. Translating Engineering Research to K-8 (TEK8) program.
- Student handouts and facilitator guides for the design challenge on "Social Networks", developed by Ishika as a middle school after-school activity, are available here.
Ian Thompson. OSU ECE BSc, Summer 2022 - Spring 2023. Eminence Fellow; Spring 2023 CoE Undergraduate Honors Research Scholarship.
Jiaqi Xu. OSU CSE BSc, Summer 2022 - Spring 2023.
Yiqiao Liao. OSU CSE BSc, Summer 2021 - Summer 2022. Publications:
- Y. Liao and P. Naghizadeh. "The Impacts of Labeling Biases on Fairness Criteria", (poster) at the ICLR 2022 workshop on Socially Responsible Machine Learning.
- Y. Liao and P. Naghizadeh. "Social Bias Meets Data Bias: The Impacts of Labeling and Measurement Errors on Fairness Criteria", in AAAI 2023 (~19.6% acceptance rate).
Katherine Lovelace. OSU Math and African American and African Studies BSc, Summer 2022.
Abby Nichter. OSU CE BSc, Summer 2021 - Spring 2022.
McKenna Hollinger. OSU CSE BSc, Spring 2022.
Adam Wang. OSU ISE BSc, Autumn 2021.
Jessica Griffin. OSU ISE BSc/MSc, Summer 2021.
Russell Zhu. OSU CSE BSc, Summer 2021.
Mingwei Qiu. OSU CSE BSc, Summer 2021.

Past High School Students

Armela Hasanbelli. Junior, Metro High School, Spring 2023.
Shahid Maniar. Junior, Metro High School, Spring 2023.

Becoming a member

Prospective graduate students: We are always looking for motivated Ph.D. students, with a strong mathematical background and interest in interdisciplinary research, to join our research group. If you are interested in joining our group, please apply directly to the graduate program, and mention my name in your application. If you would like to send me an email, please include your CV and a brief description of your research experience and interests. I apologize in advance as I am unable to respond to all emails.

Undergraduate students at UCSD: If you are interested in our group’s research, please send me an email with your CV and a brief description of any past research/project experiences.