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Hau Chan
Assistant Professor
Department of Computer Science and Engineering
University of Nebraska-Lincoln

Office: Avery 363
e-mail: hchan3 [at] unl.edu
Phone: 402-472-5091

Research Areas: AI for Social Goods, Computational Game Theory, Mechanism Design, Algorithms, Data/Graph Mining, Machine Learning, Discrete Mathematics

My current research aims to address the modeling and computational aspects of societal problems from AI and Machine Learning (ML) perspectives.

My main approach is to introduce computational models and design methods to compactly capture and efficiently solve societal problems. I leverage ideas from AI and computational game theory (CGT) when the problems involve strategic agents and decision-making, and ML and data science when the problems deal with predictions and inferences.

I am also interested in the design of lab and field experiments to improve and evaluate models and methods.

Currently, I lead the Computational Decision Science (CDS) Lab. 

Current Research Projects: 

Game-theoretic Models for Security, Social Science, and Crowdsourcing Domains
Housing Allocations for Homeless Youth
Mechanism Design (With or Without Payments)
Fair Division of Goods and Chores
Influence Maximization in Social Networks

I am looking for motivated students to work on research projects in the area of computational game theory, graph mining, and AI for social goods. If you are interested, please contact me and/or apply to the UNL CS program. 

(Short) Bio:

2018 - Current: Assistant Professor, University of Nebraska-Lincoln

2017 - 2018: Postdoctoral Fellow, Laboratory for Innovation Science at Harvard (Advisors: David Parkes and Karim Lakhani)

2017 May - August: Postdoctoral Fellow, USC Center for Artificial Intelligence in Society (Advisors: Milind Tambe and Eric Rice)

2015 - 2017: Postdoctoral Research Associate, Trinity University (Advisor: Albert Jiang)

2010 - 2015: Ph.D. Candidate in Computer Science, Stony Brook University (Advisor: Luis Ortiz)

        2013 May - August: NSF EAPSI Fellow, Nanyang Technological University (Advisor: Edith Elkind)

2006 - 2010: B. S. Candidate in Computer Science and Mathematics, College of Charleston (Advisor: Dinesh Sarvate)

        2009 May - August: NSF REU Student, Georgia Institute of Technology (Advisor: Plamen lliev)

        2009 August: Summer Program Student in Analysis and Geometry, Princeton University

(Selected) Awards:

Distinguished PC Member, 27th International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI 2018)

Best Student Research Paper Award, Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (AAMAS 2016)

Best Research Paper Award, 2015 SIAM International Conference on Data Mining (SDM 2015)

National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship, 2012 - 2015

Funding Acknowledgement (Thanks!): 

USCYBERCOM (through NSRI) 2018-2019

UNL Collaboration Initiative Planning Grant 2020-2021 and UNL Collaboration Initiative Seed Grant 2020-2022

Artificial Intelligence Journal (AIJ) and NSF (for supporting AAMAS DC and Student Scholarship) 2021

(Selected) Conference/Workshop Organizations: 

Co-Chair, Doctoral Consortium, Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (AAMAS 2021)

Co-Chair, Scholarship, Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (AAMAS 2021)

Invited Speaker, 3rd Workshop on Data Science for Social Good (SoGood 2018), 2018 The European Conference on Machine Learning and Principles and Practice of Knowledge Discovery in Databases (ECML-PKDD 2018)

Teaching:

Spring 2016: CSCI-1311 Introduction to Programming Logic (at Trinity University)

Fall 2016: CSCI-1311 Introduction to Programming Logic (at Trinity University)

Fall 2018: CSCE 990 Networks, Crowds, and Markets

Spring 2019: CSCE 496/896 Computational Game Theory and Its Applications

Fall 2019: CSCE 310H Honors Data Structures and Algorithms

Spring 2020: CSCE 496/896 Computational Game Theory and Its Applications

Fall 2020: CSCE 310H Honors Data Structures and Algorithms

Spring 2021: CSCE 496/896 Computational Game Theory and Its Applications

Learning:

AAMAS 2019: Tutorial on Solving Games with Complex Strategy Spaces (with A. Jiang and F. Fang)

IJCAI 2019: Tutorial on Solving Games with Complex Strategy Spaces (with F. Fang)

AAMAS 2020: Tutorial on Computational Game Theory and Its Applications (with A. Sinha and M. Irfan)

IJCAI 2020: Tutorial on Computational Game Theory and Its Applications (with A. Sinha and M. Irfan)

Publications:

2021

Exploring the Efficiency of Self-Organizing Software Teams with Game Theory
C. Stevens, J. Soundy, and H. Chan
The 43rd International Conference on Software Engineering - New Ideas and Emerging Results (ICSE-NIER 2021)
[Link]

Maximizing Approximately k-Submodular Functions
L. Zheng, H. Chan, G. Loukides, and M. Li
2021 SIAM International Conference on Data Mining (SDM 2021)
[Link]

Multi-Robot Task Allocation—Complexity and Approximation
H. Aziz, H. Chan, A. Cseh, B. Li, F. Ramezani, and C. Wang
International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (AAMAS 2021)
[Link]

Facility’s Perspective to Fair Facility Location Problems
H. Chan, M. Li, C. Wang, and X. Wu
The Thirty-Fifth AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI 2021)
[Link]

2020

Influence Maximization in the Presence of Vulnerable Nodes: A Ratio Perspective
H. Chen, G. Loukides, S. P. Pissis, and H. Chan
Theoretical Computer Science (TCS)
[Link]

The Capacity Constrained Facility Location Problem
H. Aziz, H. Chan, B. E. Lee, and D. C. Parkes
Games and Economic Behavior (GEB)
[Link]

Adversarial Blocking Bandits
N. Bishop, H. Chan, D. Mandal, and L. Tran-Thanh
Thirty-fourth Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS 2020)
[Link]

Algorithms for Optimizing the Ratio of Monotone k-Submodular Functions
H. Chan, G. Loukides, and Z. Su
2020 The European Conference on Machine Learning and Principles and Practice of Knowledge Discovery in Databases (ECML-PKDD 2020)
[Link]

Fighting Wildfires under Uncertainty - A Sequential Resource Allocation Approach
H. Chan, L. Tran-Thanh, and V. Viswanathan
29th International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence - AI for CompSust and Human well-being (IJCAI 2020)
[Link]

The Price of Anarchy of Self-Selection in Tullock Contests
International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (AAMAS 2020) [Extended Abstract]
H. Chan, D. C. Parkes, and K. Lakhani
[Link][PDF (Long)]

Schelling Models with Localized Social Influence: A Game-Theoretic Framework
International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (AAMAS 2020)
H. Chan, M. Irfan, and C. Viet
[Link] Invited to JAAMAS Fast Track

Facility Location Problem with Capacity Constraints: Algorithmic and Mechanism Design Perspectives
The Thirty-Fourth AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI 2020)
H. Aziz, H. Chan, B. E. Lee, B. Li, and T. Walsh
[Link]

2019

The Capacity Constrained Facility Location Problem
The 15th Conference on Web and Internet Economics (WINE 2019)
H. Aziz, H. Chan, B. E. Lee, and D. C. Parkes

Maximin-Aware Allocations of Indivisible Goods
28th International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI 2019)
H. Chan, J. Chen, B. Li, and X. Wu
[Link] [Link (long)]

Weighted Maxmin Fair Share Allocation of Indivisible Chores
28th International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI 2019)
H. Aziz, H. Chan, and B. Li

Who Should Pay the Cost: A Game-theoretic Model for Government Subsidized Investments to Improve National Cybersecurity 
28th International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence - AI for Improving Human Well-being (IJCAI 2019)
X. Wang, B. An, and H. Chan
Limiting the Influence to Vulnerable Users in Social Networks: A Ratio Perspective
The 33rd International Conference on Advanced Information Networking and Applications (AINA 2019)
H. Chen, G. Loukides, J. Fan, and H. Chan
[Link]

2018

Linking Homelessness Vulnerability Assessments to Housing Placements and Outcomes for Youth
E. Rice, M. Holguin , H. Hsu , M. Morton, P. Vayanos, M. Tambe and H. Chan
Cityscape
[Link]

An FPTAS for Computing Nash Equilibrium in Resource Graph Games
H. Chan and A. X. Jiang
27th International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI 2018)

Learning Game-theoretic Models from Aggregate Behavioral Data with Applications to Vaccination Rates in Public Health
H. Chan and L. E. Ortiz
International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (AAMAS 2018) [Extended Abstract]
[Link] [PDF (Long)]

From Empirical Analysis to Public Policy: Evaluating Housing Systems for Homeless Youth
H. Chan, E. Rice, P. Vayanos, M. Tambe, and M. Morton
2018 The European Conference on Machine Learning and Principles and Practice of Knowledge Discovery in Databases (ECML-PKDD 2018)
[PDF]

Partially Generative Neural Networks for Gang Crime Classification with Partial Information
S. Seo, H. Chan, P. J. Brantingham, J. Leap, P. Vayanos, M. Tambe, and Y. Liu
The First AAAI/ACM Conference on AI, Ethics, and Society (AIES 2018)
[PDF]

Utilizing Housing Resources for Homeless Youth Through the Lens of Multiple Multi-Dimensional Knapsacks
H. Chan, L. Tran-Thanh, B. Wilder, E. Rice, P. Vayanos, and M. Tambe
The First AAAI/ACM Conference on AI, Ethics, and Society (AIES 2018)
[PDF]

2017

Using social networks to raise HIV awareness among homeless youth
A. Yadav, H. Chan, A. X. Jiang, H. Xu, E. Rice, R. Petering, M. Tambe
IBM Journal of Research and Development
[Link]

Interdependent Defense Games with Applications to Internet Security at the Level of Autonomous Systems
H. Chan, M. Ceyko, and L. Ortiz
Games 
[Link]

Provision-After-Wait with Common Preferences
H. Chan, J. Chen, and G. Srinivasan
ACM Transactions on Economics and Computation (TEAC)
[Link]

Game-theoretic Goal Recognition Models with Applications to Security Domains
S. Ang, H. Chan, A. X. Jiang, and W. Yeoh
2017 Conference on Decision and Game Theory for Security (GameSec 2017)
[PDF]

Resource Graph Games: A Compact Representation for Games with Structured Strategy Spaces
A. X. Jiang, H. Chan, and K. Leyton-Brown
The Thirty-First AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI 2017)
[Link]

2016

Multilinear Games
H. Chan and A. X. Jiang, K. Leyton-Brown, and R. Mehta
The 12th Conference on Web and Internet Economics (WINE 2016)

Congestion Games with Polytopal Strategy Space
H. Chan and A. X. Jiang
25th International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI 2016)

Provision-After-Wait with Common Preferences
H. Chan and J. Chen
International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (AAMAS 2016)
[PDF]

Budget Feasible Mechanisms for Dealers
H. Chan and J. Chen
International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (AAMAS 2016)
[PDF]

Using Social Networks to Aid Homeless Shelters: Dynamic Influence Maximization Under Uncertainty
A. Yadav, H. Chan, A. X. Jiang, H. Xu, E. Rice, and M. Tambe
Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (AAMAS 2016)
[PDF] Best Student Research Paper

Optimizing Network Robustness by Edge Rewiring: A General Framework
H. Chan and L. Akoglu
2016 The European Conference on Machine Learning and Principles and Practice of Knowledge Discovery in Databases (ECML-PKDD 2016), Journal Track (Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery)

2015

Computing Nash Equilibria in Interdependent Defense Games
H. Chan and L. Ortiz
The Twenty-Ninth AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI 2015)
[Link]

Where Graph Topology Matters: The Robust Subgraph Problem
H. Chan, Shuchu Han, and L. Akoglu
2015 SIAM International Conference on Data Mining (SDM 2015)
[Link] Best Research Paper

2014

Computing Nash Equilibria in Interdependent Security Games
H. Chan and L. Ortiz
2014 Neural Information Processing Systems Foundation (NIPS 2014)

Truthful Multi-unit Procurements with Budgets
H. Chan and J. Chen
The 10th Conference on Web and Internet Economics (WINE 2014)
[PDF][Link (long)]

Make It or Break It: Manipulating Robustness in Large Networks
H. Chan, L. Akoglu, and H. Tong
2014 SIAM International Conference on Data Mining (SDM 2014)

2013 - 2012

External Evaluation of Topic Models: A Graph Mining Approach
H. Chan and L. Akoglu
The IEEE 13th International Conference on Data Mining (ICDM 2013)
[PDF]

Multiwinner Elections Under Preferences that Are Single-Peaked on a Tree
L. Yu, H. Chan, and E. Elkind
23rd International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI 2013)

Interdependent Defense Games: Modeling Interdependent Security under Deliberate Attacks
H. Chan, M. Ceyko, and L. Ortiz
The 28th Conference on Uncertainty in Artificial Intelligence (UAI 2012)
[PDF] [SUPP]

2012 - 2009 (Discrete Mathematics)

Sarvate-Beam designs: new results and large sets
H. Chan, W. Hein, D. G. Sarvate
The Journal of Combinatorial Mathematics and Combinatorial Computing (JCMCC), (84) 2012
[PDF]

Stanton Graph Decompositions
H. Chan and D. G. Sarvate
Bulletin of Institute of Combinatorics and its Applications (Bulletin of ICA), (64) 2012
[PDF]

On 1-Sarvate-Beam designs
H. Chan and D. G. Sarvate
Discrete Math (DM), (311) 2011

Beautifully Ordered Balanced Incomplete Block Designs
H. Chan and D. G. Sarvate
The Journal of Combinatorial Mathematics and Combinatorial Computing (JCMCC), (74) 2010
[PDF]

A non-existence result and large sets for SB designs
H. Chan and D. G. Sarvate
Ars Combinatoria, (95) 2010
[PDF]

Sets of MOLSs generated from a single Latin square
H. Chan and D. G. Sarvate
Congressus Numerantium, (195) 2009
[PDF]