Dr. S. (Shihan) Wang

Buys Ballotgebouw
Princetonplein 5
Kamer BBG520
3584 CC Utrecht

Dr. S. (Shihan) Wang

Assistant Professor
Intelligent Systems
s.wang2@uu.nl

Here are some of my recent research projects. For potential students: Please contact me if you are interested in doing a PhD, Master thesis, Bachelor thesis, or any other kind of project with me. 

  • Learning to communicate in MARL: This is an ongoing PhD project conducted by C. Zhu where I am the co-promoter and daily supervisor.  
  • MARL with sparse reward and heterogeneous properties: This is an ongoing PhD project conducted by S. Han, where I am the co-promoter and daily supervisor.  
  • Use RL for natural language processing (NLP) tasks:
    • Use deep RL for dialogue systems policy optimization: This is an ongoing collaborative research project with Yangyang Zhao.  
    • Specialize NLP models through Reinforcement Learning: This is an ongoing PhD project conducted by Leon Eshuijs at VU, where I co-supervise (with Prof. Antske Fokkens). It is funded by the HI project. 
    • RL to augment the knowledge in conversational agents: This is an ongoing PhD project conducted by Selene Baez Santamaria at VU.
  • Use RL to support real-time human (healthcare) behaviors:
    • This project 'Wie zorgt?' aims to develop an intelligent RL-based environment to decrease the pressure on the healthcare professional and improve the quality of care for the elderly with dementia. This is a collaborative project with HvA, Tue, and HAN and funded by SIA-Publiek. 
    • This research is a collaborative work with TNO under the HI project. We aim to develop a knowledge-based dialogue system for clinical support of patients with Type 2 diabetes and optimize the interaction using RL. 
  • Use MARL for sustainable energy tasks: This research is an ongoing PhD project in AI & Sustainability Lab at UU. We collaborate with energy scientists at the Geoscience department, to develop an efficient approach for managing renewable energy resources in the energy market. 
  • Understand public sentiment and communication from social media data during the COVID-19 outbreak period: This research started with NLP analysis in the PuReGoMe project and now we extend it to analyze the dynamics of communication networks (e.g. information maximization or community detection through representation learning & reinforcement learning). We have a great number of Dutch social media data and are open to collaborations. 
Projects
Project
Human-AI Interactions in Urban Governance 01.11.2024 to 31.10.2025
General project description

How does artificial intelligence (AI) impact urban governance and the sustainability transition? By integrating insights from urban planning, political science, and computer science, this project investigates the governance challenges, ethical dilemmas, and social justice concerns arising from human-AI interactions in urban governance. Through a systematic literature review, the project will develop a conceptual framework to analyze these interactions, ensuring that AI aligns with collective human values. This framework will provide insights for cities implementing AI, fostering equitable and sustainable urban development through adaptive governance strategies.

Role
Researcher
Funding
Other Pathways to Sustainability seed funding in Utrecht University