Current Research Group Members

In reverse chronological order of joining our group:

• Will Fenton, undergraduate student, NSERC USRA summer 2019.
• Md Solimul Chowdhury, PhD student, co-supervised with Jia You, joined group in Fall 2016.
• Gaojian Fan, PhD student, co-supervised with Rob Holte. I joined as co-supervisor in Summer 2016.
  Gaojian's PhD thesis: Understanding and Improving Merge-and-Shrink Abstraction for Cost Optimal Planning
• Chao Gao, PhD student, co-supervised with Ryan Hayward, joined group in Fall 2015.
• Yunpeng Tang, MSc student, Undergraduate summer student 2015 and 2016. MSc started Fall 2017.
• Chenjun Xiao, MSc 2014-2016, PhD started Fall 2016, Dale Schuurmans co-supervises since 2018.

Alumni

In reverse chronological order:

• Mohammad Ajallooeian, co-supervised with Csaba Szepesvari, PhD student 2014-2018.
• Farhad Haqiqat, MSc 2018.
  Now Lead Data Scientist at Nanoprecise Sci Corp.
  Farhad's MSc thesis: Analyzing the impact of knowledge and search in Monte Carlo Tree Search in Go.
• Andrew Jacobsen, undergraduate student, NSERC USRA 2015 and 2016, NSERC Engage 2017. Now a graduate student in our department.
• Fan Xie, MSc started 2010, transfered to PhD program 2012, PhD 2015 co-supervised with Rob Holte. Now at Google Waterloo.
  Fan's PhD thesis: Exploration in Greedy Best-First Search for Satisficing Planning.
  2016 Faculty of Science Dissertation Award.
• Weifeng Chen, MSc 2015. Now at Amazon Web Services.
  Weifeng's MSc thesis: Motion planning with Monte Carlo random walks.
• Jacob Ridgway, HIP student, summer 2015. Now at University of Toronto.
• Yeqin Zhang, MSc 2015. Now at LinkedIn.
  Yeqin's MSc thesis: TDS+: Improving Temperature Discovery Search
• Hootan Nakhost, PhD 2013. Now Senior Software Engineer at Google Waterloo.
  Hootan's PhD thesis: Random Walk Planning: Theory, Practice, and Application.
  2013 PhD Outstanding Thesis Award in Computing Science, University of Alberta.
  CAIAC Dissertation Award for best PhD thesis from the Canadian Artificial Intelligence Association.
• Kazuki Yoshizoe, visiting professor 2011, 2013, 2014. Now leader of the Search and Parallel Computing Unit, RIKEN Center for Advanced Intelligence Project, Tokyo, Japan
• Sumudu Fernando, programmer/analyst 2012/13. Now at Google.
• Jiaxing Song, MSc 2012.
  Jiaxing's MSc thesis: An Enhanced Solver For The Game Of Amazons. Now at SoundHound, Toronto.
• Gabe Van Eyck, MSc 2012.
  Gabe's MSc thesis: Move Groups as a General Enhancement for Monte Carlo Tree Search. Now at Riot Games, California.
• Colin Hunt, NSERC USRA summer student, 2012. Now Software Developer at Pason, Calgary.
• Aja Huang, postdoc (co-supervised with R. Hayward), 2011-12. Now Staff Research Scientist at Google DeepMind in London, England.
  AlphaGo lead programmer.
• Abdallah Saffidine, visiting PhD student from Université Paris Dauphine, 2011-2012. Now Research Associate at the School of Computer Science and Engineering, University of New South Wales, Sydney.
• Saradha Sankaran, programmer/analyst 2011-12. Now lead consultant for British Telecom in Bengaluru, India.
• Kunihito Hoki, Assistant Professor at the University of Electro-Communications in Tokyo, visiting professor for 1.5 months, 2012.
• Hilmar Finnsson, PhD student visiting from University of Reykjavik, 3 months, 2011. Now a postdoc there.
• Henry Brausen, NSERC USRA student (joint with R. Hayward), summer 2011. Now at Eleven Engineering, Inc.
• Tomoyuki Kaneko, Assistant Professor from University of Tokyo, author of the top shogi program GPS shogi, visited for 2 months in 2011.
• David Tom, MSc 2010.
  David's MSc thesis: Investigating UCT and RAVE: steps towards a more robust method. Now Technical Analyst at Tantus Solutions Group.
• Broderick Arneson, Senior programmer/analyst 2010. Now at Google.
• Arpad Rimmel, Postdoc 2010. Now at Supelec.
• Teri Drummond, undergraduate summer student 2010. Now at Bioware.
• Xiaozhen Niu, PhD student 2004-2010. Now at CGI, Victoria, BC.
• David Silver PhD 2009, co-supervised with Rich Sutton.
  David's PhD thesis: Reinforcement Learning and Simulation-Based Search in Computer Go.
  Outstanding PhD Thesis Award.
  Now at Google DeepMind in London, England, AlphaGo lead architect and leader of the Reinforcement Learning group.
• Ling Zhao PhD student 2002-2009.
• Markus Enzenberger Senior programmer/analyst 2002-2009. Main author of Fuego.
• Travis Dick Undergraduate summer student 2008, NSERC USRA summer student 2009. MSc at UAlberta with Rich Sutton, now PhD student at CMU.
• Adi Botea PhD 2006, co-supervised with Jonathan Schaeffer. Now at IBM Research Ireland. Adi's PhD thesis
• Akihiro Kishimoto PhD 2005. Now at IBM Research Ireland. Kishi's PhD thesis
• Zhichao Li: summer student / programmer, 2002 - 2005. Now at Bioware.
• Xiaozhen Niu MSc 2004. Now at CGI, Victoria, BC.
• Mack Male: summer student 2004. Now an Edmonton-based entrepreneurial journalist and founder of digital publishing company Taproot Publishing Inc.
• Roy de Bruijn: summer student 2003, co-supervised with Rob Holte.
• Jianjun Zhou MSc 2003. Now a Research Scientist at Shenzhen Research Institute of Big Data.
• Ling Zhao MSc 2002, co-supervised with Jonathan Schaeffer.
• Nathan Bullock MSc 2002, co-supervised with Jonathan Schaeffer. Now software engineer at Google.
• Theodore Tegos: MSc 2002, co-supervised with Jonathan Schaeffer.
• Andrew Creskey: summer student 2001, co-supervised with Rob Holte.

External examiner for PhD defense, PhD candidacy

• Mihai Dobre, PhD defense, University of Edinburgh, 2018
• Neil McKay], PhD defense, Dalhousie University, 2016
• Abdallah Saffidine, PhD defense, Universit\'e Paris Dauphine, 2013
• Hilmar Finnsson, PhD defense, University of Reykjavik, May 21, 2012
• Fabien Teytaud, PhD defense, Universite Paris Sud, Dec 8, 2011
• Junichi Hashimoto, PhD defense, JAIST, Feb 1, 2011
• Hilmar Finnsson, PhD candidacy, University of Reykjavik, July 2, 2010
• Guillaume Chaslot, PhD assessment committee, Maastricht University, 2010
• Arpad Rimmel, PhD defense, Universite Paris Sud, 2009
• Paul Ottaway, PhD defense, Dalhousie, 2009

External examiner for MSc defense

• Hilmar Finnsson, University of Reykjavik, 2007
• Jonheidur Isleifsdottir, University of Reykjavik, 2007