Overview

Actively mentoring PhD students at MBZUAI on projects spanning RL for LLMs, safe decision-making, and practical applications of machine learning. Focus on developing both technical skills and research independence.

Mentorship Philosophy

I believe effective PhD mentorship goes beyond technical guidance. My approach emphasizes:

  • Research Independence: Helping students develop their own research taste and direction
  • Technical Depth: Building strong foundations in ML/RL theory and practice
  • Communication Skills: Training in writing, presenting, and articulating research contributions
  • Career Development: Supporting diverse career paths in academia and industry

Current Students

I’m privileged to work with talented PhD students on cutting-edge problems in reinforcement learning and machine learning. Projects span:

  • Reinforcement learning for language model alignment
  • Safe decision-making in high-stakes domains
  • Transfer learning and domain adaptation
  • Practical deployment of RL systems

Mentorship Activities

Regular Activities

  • Weekly one-on-one meetings for project discussion and guidance
  • Paper reading groups to stay current with latest research
  • Practice talks and paper reviews before submissions
  • Career development and networking support

Research Skills Development

  • Problem formulation and research question design
  • Experimental design and rigorous evaluation
  • Technical writing and paper structure
  • Code organization and reproducibility

Professional Development

  • Conference presentation skills
  • Networking at research venues
  • Collaboration best practices
  • Work-life balance in research

Prospective Students

I’m always interested in working with motivated students who are passionate about:

  • Reinforcement learning (theory and applications)
  • Safe and robust decision-making
  • Real-world ML deployment
  • Healthcare AI and other high-impact applications

If you’re interested in working together, please don’t hesitate to reach out with your research interests and background.

Mentorship Outcomes

Former mentees have gone on to:

  • Publish at top-tier ML venues (NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR, etc.)
  • Secure research internships at leading institutions
  • Pursue successful careers in both academia and industry
  • Continue making impactful contributions to the ML community