Prof. Milind Tambe

Professor Milind Tambe

Gordon McKay Professor of Computer Science and Director of the Center for Research in Computation and Society (CRCS) at Harvard University.

Director, AI for Social Good at Google Research India.

Maxwell Dworkin 125, SEAS
Harvard University,
33 Oxford Street, Cambridge, MA 02138
milind_tambe@harvard.edu

Research and Awards

Milind Tambe is Gordon McKay Professor of Computer Science and Director of Center for Research in Computation and Society at Harvard University; concurrently, he is also Director "AI for Social Good" at Google Research India. He is recipient of the IJCAI (International Joint Conferenceon AI) John McCarthy Award (2018), ACM Autonomous Agents Research Award (2005), AAAI Robert S. Engelmore Memorial Lecture Award (2019), as well as a fellow of AAAI (Association for Advancement of Artificial Intelligence) (2007) and a fellow of ACM (Association for Computing Machinery) (2013). He is also a recipient of the Christopher Columbus Fellowship Foundation Homeland security award(2010), the INFORMS Wagner prize for excellence in Operations Research practice (2012), the Rist Prize of the Military Operations Research Society (2011), IBM Faculty Award(2012), Okawa foundation faculty research award (2004), the RoboCup scientific challenge award(1999), Orange County Engineering Council Outstanding Project Achievement Award (2015), USC Associates Award for Creativity in Research (2014) and USC Viterbi School of Engineering use-inspired research award (2009).

Prof. Tambe has contributed several foundational papers in Artificial Intelligence in areas of agents and multiagent systems and computational game theory. For this research, he has received the influential paper award and best paper awards at a number of premier Artificial Intelligence Conferences and workshops --- these have included International Joint Conference on AI (IJCAI), International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (AAMAS) and International Conference on Intelligent Virtual Agents (IVA) (e.g., recent best paper awards include AAMAS'2016, IAAI'2016, IJCAI'15, AAMAS'12, AAMAS'11, IVA'11,

Professor Tambe receives an award from the Commandant of the US Coast Guard

AAMAS'09). Furthermore, today, the security games framework that Prof. Tambe pioneered has been deployed and tested for security optimization, both nationally and internationally, by agencies such as the US Coast Guard and the Federal Air Marshals Service, by various police departments in Los Angeles, as well as by non-governmental organizations committed to wildlife conservation. This research has led him and his students to receive the US Coast Guard Meritorious Team Commendation from the Commandant(2013), US Coast Guard First District's Operational Excellence Award(2011), Certificate of Appreciation from the US Federal Air Marshals Service (2011) and special commendation given by the Los Angeles World Airports police from the city of Los Angeles(2009). Finally, his work with algorithms for exploiting social networks for HIV prevention were listed by Mashable.com in their "26 incredible innovations that improved the world in 2015".

Grants

Prof. Tambe has served as PI for two MURI grants. One from 2011-2017 explored game theory and machine learning in the context of physical security. A newer MURI grant 2017-2022 will explore game theory and AI in the context of cybersecurity. MURI grants are multi-university research initiatives with upwards of $6.5 million in funding each. In addition, Prof. Tambe has served as PI on several grants from DARPA, NSF, ARO, DHS, TSA and other agencies.

Teaching and Service

So far, 30 PhD students have completed their theses under his supervision; he has also mentored 11 Postdoctoral researchers. Currently Prof. Tambe supervises a team of 15 PhD students, and several MS students.

In 2013, based on their research, Prof. Tambe and team co-founded Avata Intelligence. He serves as a member of the board of directors and as director of research at Avata Intelligence.

For his service, Prof. Tambe received the ACM recognition of service award (2004). His service includes National Academy of Sciences panels, blue ribbon panel to review security at LAX airport and DARPA ISAT Panels. He has also served as general co-chair for AAMAS (2004), and as a member of the board of directors of IFAAMAS, the IJCAI executive committee, the board of trustees of RoboCup Robot Soccer World Cup Federation and the steering board of the Conference on Decision and Game Theory for Security (GameSec); he also served as associate editor, advisory board member and editorial board member of journals including the Journal of AI Research (JAIR), IEEE Intelligent Systems and the Journal of Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (JAAMAS). He is currently is co-editor for JAIR special track on AI and Society. Prof. Tambe received his Ph.D. from the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University.