I recently started using Anki (open source spaced repetition flashcard tool) for reviewing, learning, and remembering technical material that I’ve learned over the years. Given the nature of optimization, machine learning, control theory, etc., it’s usually the case that I want to easily include expressions/equations in my flashcards. By default, any LaTeX code in an…
I’m an assistant professor at MIT in LIDS, CEE, & IDSS, and I study machine learning for decisions and control in mobility. My research interests are at the intersection of machine learning, robotics, and transportation. I’m broadly interested in developing the tools and understanding necessary to confidently integrate automated decisions into societal & industrial systems.…
Journal publications [5] Flow: Architecture and Benchmarking for Reinforcement Learning in Traffic Control Cathy Wu, Aboudy Kreidieh, Kanaad Parvate, Eugene Vinitsky, Alexandre Bayen IEEE Transactions on Robotics (T-RO). In review. arXiv / videos / github / project page [4] Optimizing the diamond lane: A more tractable carpool problem and algorithms Cathy Wu, K. Shankari, Ece…
Following UC Berkeley PATH’s automated highway project of 1997, recent decades have seen a tremendous amount of progress in automating transportation. Tech giants, ride hailing services, and car manufacturers alike are jumping in on the scene. But why is traffic still a problem? This article is a synthesis of the progress and the challenges to come: improving safety, energy efficiency, and ease of use of transportation systems. [Link to full article]
This general-audience magazine article is the culmination of a summer reading group on the societal implications of technology, with an emphasis on the role and responsibility of researchers in science and engineering. With this article we pose many questions and answer very few, with the goal of sparking and sustaining a conversation among researchers on our role moving forward. [Link to full article]
Area 1 Security is fighting social engineering attacks with NSA-like methods. But after learning tricks from the NSA, Area 1’s co-founders think they’ve got the solution. It’s a butt service that basically watches the whole Internet and can then detect when something fishy (phishy?) is going on at a particular company. "The hardest thing a…
Recent projects My recent blog posts Articles I liked
Republican economists, like Mankiw, normally oppose tax increases, but many support Pigovian taxes because, in some sense, we are already paying them. We pay the tax in the form of the overcrowded roads, higher insurance premiums, smog and global warming. via Should We Tax People for Being Annoying? – NYTimes.com. Pigovian tax
In addition to teaching 6.004 (Computation Structures) this semester, I was also a volunteer ESL instructor to Chinese immigrants with a Harvard student-run program called Chinatown ESL. The program, though still constantly seeking improvement (as every program should), seems very mature and effective. Its curriculum is divided into 5 levels, with the first level assuming…