Dr. Fei Fang

Assistant Professor

Bio

Fei Fang is an Assistant Professor at the Software and Societal Systems Department at Carnegie Mellon University. Before joining CMU, she was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for Research on Computation and Society (CRCS) at Harvard University, advised by Prof. David Parkes and Prof. Barbara Grosz. She received her Ph.D. from the Department of Computer Science at the University of Southern California in June 2016, advised by Prof. Milind Tambe. She received her bachelor degree from the Department of Electronic Engineering, Tsinghua University in July 2011.

Her research lies in the field of artificial intelligence and multi-agent systems, focusing on computational game theory with applications to security and sustainability domains. Her dissertation is selected as the runner-up for IFAAMAS-16 Victor Lesser Distinguished Dissertation Award. Her work has won the Innovative Application Award at Innovative Applications of Artificial Intelligence (IAAI’16), the Outstanding Paper Award in Computational Sustainability Track at the International Joint Conferences on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI’15). Her work on “Protecting Moving Targets with Mobile Resources” has been deployed by the US Coast Guard for protecting the Staten Island Ferry in New York City since April 2013. Her work on designing patrol strategies to combat illegal poaching has lead to the deployment of PAWS application in a conservation area in Southeast Asia for protecting tigers.

Education

2016, Ph.D. in Computer Science
University of Southern California
Advisor: Prof. Milind Tambe
Thesis: Towards Addressing Spatio-Temporal Aspects in Security Games

Research

My research interests lie in the area of artificial intelligence, focusing on the intersection of computational game theory and machine learning, with strong connections to robust and large-scale optimization. Aiming to address real-world challenges in critical domains such as security and sustainability, my work not only has strong theoretical contributions but also has led to applications that have fundamentally altered current practices in the domains I have worked in. Along the way, I have actively collaborated with researchers and practitioners in diverse disciplines, including computer science, operations research, psychology, economics, criminology, conservation biology and ecology.

I have been developing models and algorithms to advance the state of the art to a new generation of security games (i.e., defender-attacker games), handling massive games with complex spatio-temporal settings. I have worked on protecting moving targets with mobile resources, with my algorithm deployed by the US Coast Guard for protecting the Staten Island Ferry in New York City. Motivated by the challenge of preventing poaching and illegal fishing, I have proposed the Green Security Game model and developed algorithms to design patrol strategies in protected areas. My work has led to the deployment of the PAWS (Protection Assistant for Wildlife Security) application for tiger conservation in Southeast Asia.