I am a Senior Researcher in Noah's Ark Lab, Huawei Technologies Ltd.. Noah's Ark is Huawei's Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning research lab, with various locations in China, Europe and North America.
I joined Noah's Ark in Jan 2017. From Jan 2015-Dec 2016, I was in Huawei's Mathematical and Algorithmic Sciences Lab, where my work emphasis was on problems related to network optimisation.
Previously, I was a Research Fellow (post-doc) in the School of Mathematics, University of Birmingham, working with Nikolaos Fountoulakis, and before that, a Research Associate with Moez Draief at Imperial College London. I did my PhD with Colin Cooper at King's College London.
Between degrees, I worked as a software developer with IPL in Bath, Somerset, and Detica (now part of BAE Systems) in Guildford, Surrey.
Current research interests are in reinforcement learning and its variations, optimisation, online learning and decision-making.
In the Mathematical and Algorithmic Sciences Lab, I mainly worked on algorithms for flow routing with constraints, traffic prediction/time series analysis, and applications to software defined networking (SDN) and network function virtualisation (NFV). I also did a project on transport mode detection from mobile phone sensor data, where the goal was to develop an algorithm to guess the transport mode (car, bus, train, etc) in real time from the gyro, magnetometer and accelerometer time series.
Prior to Huawei, my research was - broadly speaking - in random graphs and random processes on graphs. In particular, I worked on cover time of random walks, structural properties of random graphs, epidemics, local-majority dynamics and boostrap percolation.
Reinforcement learning with Wasserstein distance regularisation, with
applications to multipolicy learning
with Aldo Pacchiano and Moez Draief
The 14'th European Workshop on Reinforcement Learning (EWRL), 2018
Network slicing with splittable flows is hard
with Georgios Paschos and Spyridon Vassilaras
IEEE International Symposium on Personal, Indoor and Mobile Radio Communications (PIMRC), 2018
A phase transition in the evolution of bootstrap percolation
processes on preferential attachment graphs
with Nikolaos Fountoulakis
Random Structures and Algorithms, 52:379-418 2018
[arXiv:1404.4070] (This supersedes an eariler paper)
Robust on-line matrix completion on graphs
with Symeon Chouvardas, Lucas Claude, and Moez Draief
IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing (ICASSP), 2017
[arXiv:1506.07811]
Typical distances in a geometric model of complex networks
with Michel Bode and Nikolaos Fountoulakis
Internet Mathematics, 10.24166/im.13.2017 August 15, 2017
[arXiv:1506.07811]
Global optimization for hash-based splitting
with Paolo Medagliani, Jeremie Leguay, Mathieu Leconte, Stefano Paris
IEEE Global Communications Conference (GLOBECOM), 2016
Winner of best paper award
Local majority dynamics on preferential attachment graphs
with Michel Bode and Nikolaos Fountoulakis
12th workshop on algorithms and models for the web graph (WAW), 2015
[arXiv:1507.06818]
Speeding up cover time of sparse graphs using local knowledge
with Colin Cooper, Moez Draief
26th International Workshop on Combinatorial Algorithms (IWOCA), 2015
Global majority consensus by local majority polling on graphs of a given degree sequence
with Moez Draief
Journal: Discrete Applied Mathematics 180:1-10 2015
Conference version: International Conference on NETwork Games COntrol and oPtimization (NetGCoop), 2014
[arXiv:1209.5025] (note, this paper has undergone a change of name)
Viral processes by random walks on random regular graphs
with Colin Cooper, Moez Draief
Journal: Annals of Applied Probability 25:477-522 2015.
Workshop version: 15th International Workshop on Randomization and Computation (RANDOM), 2011
[arXiv:1104.3789]
The cover time of cartesian product graphs
with Colin Cooper, Tomasz Radzik
21st International Workshop on Combinatorial Algorithms (IWOCA), 2010
The cover time of a random graph with a given degree sequence
with Colin Cooper, Alan Frieze
Journal: Discrete Mathematics 312:3146-3163 2012
Conference version: 21st International Meeting on Probabilistic, Combinatorial and Asymptotic Methods for the Analysis of Algorithms (AofA'10)