Fei Fang, Carnegie Mellon University

Abstract

Many real-world challenges we face involve multiple self-interested decision-makers who interact with each other in an environment full of uncertainty. This talk covers our work on machine learning and game theory that can be used to tackle such challenges in security, environmental sustainability, and food security domains. One of our early works has been deployed by the US Coast Guard for protecting the Staten Island Ferry in New York City since April 2013. Another work has led to the deployment of PAWS (Protection Assistant for Wildlife Security) in multiple conservation areas around the world, which provides predictive and prescriptive analysis for anti-poaching efforts. In addition, our recent work has been used by 412 Food Rescue, a non-profit volunteer-based food rescue platform to improve their operational efficiency. The talk will also cover some of our attempts in addressing the fundamental challenges at the intersection of machine learning and game theory.

Speaker Bio:

Fei Fang is Leonardo Assistant Professor at the Institute for Software Research in the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University. Before joining CMU, she was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for Research on Computation and Society (CRCS) at Harvard University, hosted by David Parkes and Barbara Grosz. She received her Ph.D. from the Department of Computer Science at the University of Southern California advised by Milind Tambe (now at Harvard).

Her research lies in the field of artificial intelligence and multi-agent systems, focusing on integrating machine learning with game theory. Her work has been motivated by and applied to security, sustainability, and mobility domains, contributing to the theme of AI for Social Good. She is the recipient of the 2022 Sloan Research Fellowship and IJCAI-21 Computers and Thought Award. She was named to IEEE Intelligent Systems’ “AI’s 10 to Watch” list for 2020. Her work has won the Best Paper Runner-Up at the Thirty-Fifth AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI’21), Distinguished Paper at the 27th International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence and the 23rd European Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI-ECAI’18), Innovative Application Award at Innovative Applications of Artificial Intelligence (IAAI’16), the Outstanding Paper Award in Computational Sustainability Track at the International Joint Conferences on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI’15). She received an NSF CAREER Award in 2021. Her dissertation was selected as the runner-up for IFAAMAS-16 Victor Lesser Distinguished Dissertation Award, and was selected to be the winner of the William F. Ballhaus, Jr. Prize for Excellence in Graduate Engineering Research as well as the Best Dissertation Award in Computer Science at the University of Southern California. Her work has been deployed by the US Coast Guard for protecting the Staten Island Ferry in New York City since April 2013. Her work has led to the deployment of PAWS (Protection Assistant for Wildlife Security) in multiple conservation areas around the world, which provides predictive and prescriptive analysis for anti-poaching efforts.