Current members are listed first, followed by alumni.
Prof. Thomas is fascinated by both research questions studied in CMAW: how to formalize computational minds and how to design AI systems that account for agent well-being. He is excited to work with talented researchers within the lab and through collaborations beyond it.
Elisabeth is exploring whether the valence of a learning event should depend on what the agent learns, how its expected future outcomes change, and whether harmful states remain recoverable, with an initial focus on actor-critic methods.
Yiying studies whether a function from physical histories to experience can be both representation-invariant and non-degenerate, and what additional mathematical structure may be required. She began this work through the William Lee Science Impact Program (Lee SIP), a UMass Research Experience for Undergraduates program.
Derek studied direct and indirect ways to steer policy updates toward a representation-robust reinforcement-qualia objective while tracking the trade-off with task performance.