Openings for PhD Students:  I am looking for self-motivated students in the areas of (1) AI security and safety and (2) reinforcement learning. If you are interested, please email me your CV, detailed transcripts, and GRE/TOEFL scores (if available). Students with experience in deep learning, reinforcement learning, game theory, or security are preferred.

News

01/2024:	Our paper on belief-enriched pessimistic Q-learning for robust RL has been accepted to ICLR 2024. Congratulations Xiaolin!
08/2023:	Zixuan Liu joined Dr. Zheng's group as a new PhD Student. Welcome on board, Zixuan!
05/2023:	Our paper on pandering in voting systems is accepted at UAI 2023. Well done Xiaolin!
04/2023:	Our paper on coordinated beamforming is accepted at SIGMETRICS 2023. Congratulations Ding!
12/2022:	Our paper on online learning with joint probing and play is accepted at INFOCOM 2023. Congratulations Tianyi!
09/2022:	Our paper on RL-based model poisoning against federated learning is accepted at NeurIPS 2022. Congratulations Henger and Xiaolin!
01/2022:	Dr. Zheng received the prestigious NSF CAREER Award. Thank you NSF!
09/2020:	Our paper Robust Sequence Submodular Maximization was accepted to NeurIPS 2020. Congratulations Gamal!
08/2020:	Dr. Zheng is offering a new graduate course on reinforcement learning.
08/2020:	Xiaolin Sun joined Dr. Zheng's group as a new PhD Student. Welcome on board, Xiaolin!
01/2020:	Our paper Spatial-Temporal Moving Target Defense: A Markov Stackelberg Game Model was accepted to AAMAS 2020. Congratulations!
01/2020:	Our paper Structure Matters: Towards Generating Transferable Adversarial Images was accepted to ECAI 2020. Congratulations Dan!
08/2019:	Shiyuan Zhang and Tianyi Xu joined Dr. Zheng's research group. Welcome on board!
07/2019:	Our paper Placement and Allocation of Virtual Network Functions: Multi-dimensional Case was accepted to ICNP 2019. Congratulations Gamal!
08/2018:	Dr. Zheng received a three-year grant from the NSF NeTS program (with Parth H. Pathak at GMU).
08/2018:	Dr. Zheng received a three-year grant from the NSF SaTC program (sole PI).
05/2018:	Our paper Analysis of Thompson Sampling for Graphical Bandits Without the Graphs was accepted to UAI 2018. Congratulations Fang!
01/2018:	Henger Li joined Dr. Zheng's research group. Welcome on board, Henger!
11/2017:	Our paper Online Partial Throughput Maximization for Multidimensional Coflow was accepted to INFOCOM 2018. Congratulations!
04/2017:	Dr. Zheng received a two-year grant from the Louisiana Board of Regents (sole PI).
03/2017:	Our paper on current channel probing and data transmission was accepted to MobiHoc 2017. Congratulations Zhenzhi!
11/2016:	Two papers were accepted to INFOCOM 2017. Congratulations Hao and Xiaotao!
11/2016:	Our paper on optimal timing of security updates was accepted to AAAI 2017.
07/2016:	Dr. Zheng joined Tulane University.

Short Bio

Zizhan Zheng is an Associate Professor of Computer Science at Tulane University. His recent work has centered on (1) developing automated red-teaming and proactive defense and alignment techniques to enhance the security and safety of both single-agent and cooperative AI systems, and (2) integrating reinforcement learning and generative AI for efficient and trustworthy decision-making, along with their applications in various science and engineering domains.

Previously, he also worked on the optimization and economics of networked systems, including computer networks, cloud computing systems, and cyber-physical systems, and he contributed to the science of security using tools from machine learning and game theory.

[CV][Google Scholar] [DBLP] [ResearchGate]

Research Interests

• AI security and safety
• Reinforcement learning
• Generative AI
• Networks