Workshop on New Directions in Reinforcement Learning and Control
This 2-day workshop at the Institute for Advanced Study focused on research at the intersection of reinforcement learning, control and optimization. When collecting data to solve real-life and real-time problems in dynamic environments, a host of challenges arise that require novel engineering approaches and theoretical thinking at the intersection of both classical and incipient disciplines. This workshop brought together researchers working on cross-disciplinary approaches to highlight the most exciting new directions in RL and control.
The workshop was free of charge thanks to the support from the Institute for Advanced Study and the Schwab Charitable Fund made possible by the generosity of Eric and Wendy Schmidt.
Organizers:
The workshop was organized by Sanjeev Arora (IAS/Princeton University), Elad Hazan (Princeton University), Mengdi Wang (Princeton University)
Invited Speakers that confirmed:
Emma Brunskill (Stanford), Sham Kakade (U Washington), John Langford (Microsoft), Sergey Levine (Berkeley), Shie Mannor (Technion), Csaba Szepesvari (DeepMind & U Alberta), Russ Tedrake (MIT/Toyota Research Institute), Yuandong Tian (Facebook AI)
Registration: was required
If you have any problems with registration or other practical questions, please write to Michelle Huguenin (huguenin@ias.edu).
Registration for the meals and workshop are required. (Speakers do not need to register)
Although there is no registration fee, because seating is limited both in the seminar room and in our dining hall, you are required to register if you wish to attend all or part of the workshop. In addition, in order for our chef to prepare enough food, we need to have a headcount for the meals. Please note the workshop attendees are expected to pay for their lunch. Approximate range of prices are 4.00 for a salad to 9.00 for an entree. Vegetarian lunches will be available. Only cash is accepted at the cash registers. Credit cards and personal checks are not accepted.
Agenda
| Date: | November 7, 2019 |
| Topic: | Registration |
| Time/Room: | 9:30 am - 10:00 am Wolfensohn Hall |
| Date: | November, 7, 2019 |
| Topic: | Curiosity, unobserved rewards and neural networks: On recent progress in building solid foundations for RL slides video |
| Speaker: | Csaba Szepesvari, Deep Mind & U Alberta |
| Time/Room: | 10:00 am -10:45 am Wolfensohn Hall |
| Date: | November 7, 2019 |
| Topic: | Understanding deep networks and its role played in prioritized search video |
| Speaker: | Yuandong Tian, Facebook AI |
| Time/Room: | 10:45 am- 11:30 am Wolfensohn Hall |
| Date: | November 7, 2019 |
| Topic: |
Coffee Break |
| Time/Room: | 11:30 am - 12:00 pm Wolfensohn Hall |
| Date: | November 7, 2019 |
| Topic: | Towards Structural Risk Minimization for RL video slides |
| Speaker: | Emma Brunskill Stanford University |
| Time/Room: | 12:00 pm - 12:45 pm Wolfensohn Hall |
| Date: | November 7, 2019 |
| Topic: | Lunch |
| Time/Room: | 1:00 pm - 2:30 pm Simons Hall |
| Date: | November 7, 2019 |
| Topic: | Robust Control with Perception in the Loop: Towards Open-World Manipulation video slides |
| Speaker: | Russ Tedrake MIT/Toyota Research Institute |
| Time/Room: | 2:30 pm - 3:15 pm Wolfensohn Hall |
| Date: | November 7, 2019 |
| Topic: | Lightning Talks video |
| Speaker: | Galen Cho (Princeton), Christina Yu (Cornell), Cyril Zhang (Princeton), Laura Balzano (IAS/U Mich), Max Simchovitz (UC Berkeley) |
| Time/Room: | 3:15 pm - 3:45 pm Wolfensohn Hall |
| Date: | November 7, 2019 |
| Topic: | Tea |
| Time/Room: | 3:45 pm - 4:15 pm |
| Date: | November 7, 2019 |
| Topic: | Unsupervised state embedding and aggregation towards scalable reinforcement learning. video |
| Speaker: | Mengdi Wang Princeton University |
| Time/Room: | 4:15 pm - 4:45 pm Wolfensohn Hall |
| Date: | November 7, 2019 |
| Topic: | The Non-Stochastic Control Problem video |
| Speaker: | Elad Hazan Princeton University/Google AI Princeton |
| Time/Room: | 4:45 pm - 5:15 pm Wolfensohn Hall |
| Date: | November 8, 2019 |
| Topic: | Strategic Exploration via State Abstraction from Rich Observations video slides |
| Speaker: | John Langford Microsoft |
| Time/Room: | 10:00 am - 10:45 am Wolfensohn Hall |
| Date: | November 8, 2019 |
| Topic: | |
| Speaker: | Sergey Levine UC Berkeley |
| Time/Room: | 10:45 am - 11:30 am Wolfensohn Hall |
| Date: | November 8, 2019 |
| Topic: | Coffee break |
| Time/Room: | 11:30 am - 12:00 pm Wolfensohn Hall |
| Date: | November 8, 2019 |
| Topic: | Is a Good Representation Sufficient for Sample Efficient Reinforcement Learning video |
| Speaker: | Sham Kakade U Washington |
| Time/Room: | 12 pm - 12:45 pm Wolfensohn Hall |
| Date: | November 8, 2019 |
| Topic: | Lunch |
| Time/Room: | 1:00 pm - 2:30 pm Simons Hall |
| Date: | November 8, 2019 |
| Topic: | Risk and robustness in RL: nothing ventured, nothing gained. video Slides |
| Speaker: | Shie Mannor Technion |
| Time/Room: | 2:30 pm - 3:15 pm Wolfenson Hall |
| Date: | November 8, 2019 |
| Topic: | Lightning Talks video |
| Speaker: | Chi Jin (IAS/Princeton), Lin Yang (UCLA), Alec Koppel (US Army Res), Karan Singh (Princeton), Nataly Brukhim (Princeton) |
| Time/Room: | 3:15 pm - 3:45 pm Wolfensohn Hall |
| Date: | November 8, 2019 |
| Topic: | Tea |
| Time/Room: | 3:45 pm - 4:30 pm Wolfensohn Hall |
Travel Information:
Directions to IAS (driving, train and plane): https://www.ias.edu/about/maps-directions
Places to Stay:
- The Peacock Inn (1.5 miles from IAS) 20 Bayard Lane, Pirnceton, NJ 08540 - 609-924-1707
- Nassau Inn (1.6 miles from IAS) 10 Palmer Square, Princeton, NJ 08542 - 609-921-7500
- Hyatt Regency (3.1 miles from IAS) 102 Carnegie Center Drive, Princeton, NJ 08540 - 609-987-1234
- Marriott Residence Inn (3.7 miles from IAS) 3563 US Route 1, Princeton, NJ 08540 - 609-799-0550
- Hyatt Place (3.8 miles from IAS) 3565 US Highway 1, Princeton, NJ 08540 - 609-720-0200
- Extended Stay America (4.4 miles from IAS) 3450 US Highway 1, Princeton, NJ 08540 - 609-919-9000
- Courtyard Marriott (5.3 Miles from IAS) 3815 US Highway 1 at Mapleton Road, Princeton, NJ 08540 - 609-716-9100
- Homewood Suites (5.7 miles from IAS) 3819 US Highway 1, Princeton, NJ 08540 - 609-720-0550
- DoubleTree (5.9 miles from IAS) 4355 US Highway 1, Princeton, NJ 08540 - 609-452-2400
Please inquire with the hotel if they offer shuttle service to the local Princeton area.