Recruiting

In August 2025, I will be starting as an Assistant Professor in the National University of Singapore’s Department of Computer Science, and establishing a lab centered on scaling cooperative intelligence via rational, model-based AI engineering.

To that end, I am recruiting PhD students, post-doctoral researchers, research assistants, and visiting students interested in any of the following topics:

• Modeling and engineering human-like cooperative agents, e.g.:
  • Bayesian theory of mind and inverse planning
  • Cooperative communication and language-based assistance
  • Uncertainty-aware cooperative planning for assistive agents
• Cooperative infrastructure for human-human and human-machine interactions, e.g.:
  • Norm learning for decentralized coordination
  • Normative reasoning and contractualist AI alignment
  • Foundations of rational deliberation, negotiation, and justification
• Applications of rational cooperative AI, e.g.:
  • Safe and reliable web-browsing agents via cooperative (inverse) planning
  • Language-instructable AI co-players in video games
  • Safe and uncertainty-aware assistive robotics
• Probabilistic programming and model-based planning for guaranteed safe AI, e.g.:
  • Planning languages and representations for web-based AI agents
  • Multi-resolution world/agent modeling via probabilistic programs
  • Belief-space planning with symbolic/abstract belief representations

For a summary of my research interests and tastes, check out the talk I gave for my PhD thesis defense, or my faculty research statement. See my about page for mentees I have previously worked with.

If you are interested in working with me on these topics (or potentially others), please email xuan [at] mit [dot] edu sharing more about your interests and background! (If you’re nervous about sending an email, Eugene Vinitsky has written a great guide on how to send a cold emails to researchers.)

For prospective PhD students, the PhD program at NUS Computer Science has two intakes: August (apply by 15 December the previous year) and January (apply by 15 June the previous year). For guidance on how to prepare a strong PhD application, the MIT EECS Communication Lab has useful examples and advice.

The next application deadline is 15 June 2025, so if you are interested in working with me from January 2026, please reach out soon, and also submit an application!