WANWAN REN

 

I am a Ph.D. candidate in  the Department of Computer Sciences at the University of Texas at Austin. My advisor is Professor Vladimir Lifschitz. I am part of Texas Action Group at Austin, a group of researchers working on logic-based artificial intelligence.

Research Interests

Logic-based artificial intelligence, commonsense knowledge and reasoning, nonmonotonic reasoning, planning, logic programming, ontologies, natural language processing.

Education

• Ph.D. in Computer Sciences, The University of Texas at Austin, expected December 2007.
• M.S. in Computer Sciences, The University of Texas at Austin, August 2002.
• M.S. in Physics, Peking University, China, July 1998.
• B.S. in Physics, Tsinghua University, China, July 1995.

Research Experience

• Designing a modular action description language MAD.
• Defining formal semantics based on first-order logic for action descriptions with variables.
• Building a prototype of a general-purpose database of knowledge about actions using the language MAD.
• Detecting irrelevant part of action descriptions and generating ''economical'' plans for certain planning problems.

Publications and Presentations

• V. Lifschitz and W. Ren, "The Semantics of Variables in Action Descriptions'', in Proceedings of the Twenty-Second National Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI), 2007. 1025-1030.
• V. Lifschitz and W. Ren, "Variables in Action Descriptions: Merging C+ with ADL'', in Working Notes of the 8th International Symposium on Logical Formalizations of Commonsense Reasoning (as part of the AAAI Spring Symposium Series), 2007. 83-88.
• S. T. Erdogan, P. Ferraris, V. Lifschitz and W. Ren, "Why the Monkey Needs the Box: a Serious Look at a Toy Domain'', in Working Notes of the 7th IJCAI International Workshop on Nonmonotonic Reasoning, Action and Change, 2007. 57-63.
• V. Lifschitz and W. Ren, "A Modular Action Description Language'', in Proceedings of the Twenty-First National Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI), 2006. 853-859.
• V. Lifschitz and W. Ren, "Towards a Modular Action Description Language'', in Working Notes of AAAI Spring Symposium on Formalizing and Compiling Background Knowledge and Its Applications to Knowledge Representation and Question Answering, 2006. 33-43.
• V. Lifschitz and W. Ren, "Irrelevant Actions in Plan Generation (extended abstract)'', in Proceedings of the 9th Ibero-American Workshops on Artificial Intelligence, 2004. 71-78.
• Presentation on "Irrelevant Actions and Fluents in Plan Generation'', the first Texas Action Group (TAG) meeting, New Mexico State University, August, 2003.

Teaching Experience

      Teaching assistant in the Department of Computer Sciences, The University of Texas at Austin.

• Courses and working period: Generic Programming and the STL (1 semester); Automata Theory (5 semesters); Programming Languages for undergraduates (4 semesters); Programming Languages for graduates (1 semester).
• Responsibilities: Giving lectures on problem solving sessions; leading discussions; holding office hours; grading homeworks, projects and exams; heading a TA group (for undergraduate Programming Language course).

Awards and Activities

• Travel Scholarship Award, Department of Computer Sciences, The University of Texas at Austin, Fall 2004, Spring and Summer 2006, Spring and Summer 2007.
• Scholarship, Department of Computer Sciences, The University of Texas at Austin, Fall 2005 and Fall 2006.
• Teaching Assistant Commendation, Department of Computer Sciences, The University of Texas at Austin, 2002.
• Member, Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence.
• Organizer, weekly graduate students Tea Time, Department of Computer Sciences, The University of Texas at Austin, 2002.

References

• Vladimir Lifschitz, Professor
  Address: Department of Computer Sciences, The University of Texas at Austin
  1 University Station C0500, Austin, TX 78712-0233
  E-mail: vl@cs.utexas.edu        Phone: (512) 471-9564;     Fax: (512) 471-8885.
  
  
• Bruce Porter, Professor
  Address: Department of Computer Sciences, The University of Texas at Austin
  1 University Station C0500, Austin, TX 78712-0233
  E-mail: porter@cs.utexas.edu        Phone: (512) 471-9565;     Fax: (512) 471-8885.
  
  
• Michael Gelfond, Professor
  Address: Department of Computer Science, Texas Tech University
  College of Engineering, Box 43104, Lubbock, TX 79409
  E-mail: mgelfond@cs.ttu.edu        Phone: (806) 742-3527;     Fax: (806) 742-3519.
  
  
• Chitta Baral, Professor
  Address: Department of Computer Science and Engineering,
  Ira A. Fulton School of Engineering, Arizona State University
  699 South Mill Avenue #572, Tempe, AZ 85281-8809
  E-mail: chitta@asu.edu        Phone: (480) 727-6047;     Fax: (480) 965-2751.
  
  
• Joohyung Lee, Assistant Professor
  Address: Department of Computer Science and Engineering,
  Ira A. Fulton School of Engineering, Arizona State University
  699 South Mill Avenue #574, Tempe, AZ 85281-8809
  E-mail: joolee@asu.edu        Phone: (480) 727-7765;     Fax: (480) 965-2751.

 

Contact

Phone:    (512) 471-9547 (office)          

E-mail:    rww6@cs.utexas.edu

Postal address:
Department of Computer Sciences
University of Texas at Austin
1 University Station C0500
Austin, TX 78712-0233
USA

This page was last modified on January 11, 2007.