Cathy Wu

Class of 1954 Career Development Professor
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

I am interested in enabling faster, evidence-driven decisions for sociotechnical systems.

Previously, I completed my Ph.D. in EECS at UC Berkeley, and my B.S. and M.Eng. in EECS at MIT. I have also spent time at Microsoft Research, OpenAI, Waymo, Dropbox, Facebook, and startups.

Google Scholar GitHub CV
Cathy Wu

Research Interests

My research area is AI in Transportation, which asks: How will AI change transportation science & engineering? I address the bottleneck of decision-making at scale – traditional optimization approaches are overwhelmed by the complexity of transportation systems. This affects every stakeholder; my work explores how data, compute, and inference can expand what is feasible:

My aim is to develop the computational foundations for evidence-driven transportation decisions. Optimization is the critical bridge between modeling and action. By reducing its computational and labor cost, we enable high-fidelity decisions that are timely, robust, and trustworthy. My research sits at the intersection of machine learning, optimization, and mobility, with a specific focus on:

Neural Combinatorial Optimization Deep Reinforcement Learning Transportation System Modeling

Recent and Selected News

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Selected Publications

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Representative recent papers from my research.

Teaching

Outreach and Professional Education

These courses are intended for industry professionals and not MIT students.

Awards & Honors

Selected Professional Service

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Highlighted entries indicate leadership roles or particularly impactful service contributions.

Leadership & Professional Society Service

Editorial & Conference Service

Community Organization