students
Prospective Students
🎓 Ph.D. Opportunities – Fall 2026 @ UMass Amherst
PI: Dr. Mengfan Xu, Assistant Professor
Department of Mechanical & Industrial Engineering
University of Massachusetts Amherst
👩🎓 Who We’re Looking For
I am recruiting 1–2 highly motivated Ph.D. students to join my group in Fall 2026. These positions are fully funded, including tuition, competative stipends, health insurance, and travel reimbursements. Ideal candidates will have strong foundations in operations research, applied mathematics, computer science, or statistics, and a genuine interest in learning and optimization in complex systems. Strong analyticals skills with creative proofs are preferred. Prior research experience with demonstrated knowledge/success in the related areas is a plus.
I especially welcome students who are curious, self-driven, and genuinely eager to bridge theoretical rigor with practical impact in online learning and data-driven decision making under uncertainty.
🔍 About the Research
My group works at the intersection of online learning, sequential decision-making, and multi-agent systems, with applications in supply chain management, security, and trustworthy AI. Our goal is to formulate real-world complex operation research problems and develop principled algorithms for dynamic, data-driven systems that operate under uncertainty and interdependence.
💡 Research Areas
Multi-armed bandits and reinforcement learning
Multi-agent learning and coordination
Robust Learning under Heavy-tailed Risks
Simulation and data-driven optimization
Applications in cyber-physical systems
🧑🏫 About the PI
I am a tenure-track Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering and an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Manning College of Information \& Computer Sciences at University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMass Amherst). I began my faculty career at UMass Amherst in September 2024 after earning my Ph.D. in Operations Research from Northwestern University in August 2024. My research focuses on online learning (online sequential decision-making paradigms in artificial intelligence), with an emphasis on distributed learning systems, statistical learning, stochastic simulation, with applications in network systems, security, and cybersecurity. I have published in top conferences including NeurIPS, ICML, AISTATS, ACM SIGMETRICS, and WSC, with a NeurIPS 2023 spotlight (top 3\% of 13,000 submissions), as well as in the RLC Workshop, where the work received an honorable mention.
📬 How to Apply
If you are interested:
Visit my website: https://mengfanxu1997.github.io
Email me at mengfanxu@umass.edu your CV and a brief statement of research interests (please use the subject line: Ph.D. Application – Fall 2026 - magic888)
The applications will be reviewed in a rolling basis until the positions are filled, and selected candidates will be invited for a virtual interview. The final decisions are made by UMass Amherst via a formal application.
Formal applications should also be submitted through the UMass Amherst Graduate School through the following link https://www.umass.edu/graduate/apply/how-apply. The application portal is open and will be closed on Jan 15, 2026. Please select the IEOR program and mention my name in the application.
Current Students and Alumni
I have been privileged and fortunate to have worked with very talented and amazing students. It has been truly enjoyable to have our career paths cross.
PhD students
Bingnan Huo (at UMass Amherst), Starting Sep. 2025
Background: M.S. in Data Science, Brown University, 2025
Muyu Yang (at UMass Amherst), Sep. 2024 - Present
Background: M.S. in Operation Research, Columbia University, 2023
Undergraduates
Jingyuan Liu (at Nanjing University), Oct. 2024 - Present
John Wang (at UMass Amherst), Sept. 2025 - Present
Jose (at UMass Amherst), Jan. 2025 - July 2025
Next Position: Graduate student in Comouter Science at UMass Amherst
Jingshuai Zhang (at University of Minnesota - Twin Cities), Sep. 2024 - July 2025
Next Position: Graduate student in Computer Science at University of Pennsylvania
Jessica Lanin (at Northwestern), Spring 2023
Alejandra Bustamante (at Northwestern), Spring 2023
Tom Muma Ratemo (at Northwestern), Spring 2023
Tyler Shannon (at Northwestern), Spring 2023
Konyin Rilwan Okubadejo (at Northwestern), Spring 2023
Research Assistants
NA