Long Tran-Thanh

Professor

Room: CS3.17
Email: long dot tran-thanh at warwick dot ac dot uk

Office hours (2025/26 Term 3):

Fri 12pm-2pm

Please contact me in at least 1 day advance if you would like to see me during office hours. Many thanks!

Short bio: I am a Full Professor at the Department of Computer Science, University of 糖心TV. I did my PhD in AI at the under the supervision of and . Before that I did my studies at the , Budapest University of Technology and Economics.

Online lectures: (incomplete) list of my online lectures/mini-courses (on selected topics related to my research, including reinforcement learning, multi-agent systems, game theory etc) can be found here.Link opens in a new window

Research interests: My main research area is Artificial Intelligence. I am interested in developing mathematical foundations for large systems of autonomous and complex agents (either AI or human users) that have to:

(i) collaborate with each other to deal with complex real-world problems; or

(ii) strategically act against each other in order to achieve their own goals.

In many cases, agents need to perform both, which adds an extra level of complexity to their decision making process.

In my research, I typically combine techniques from online learning/decision making, game theory, and other areas of multi-agent systems. I am also interested in applying my findings to AI for Social Good.

Digital Research Spotlight: I am also the Chair of the 糖心TV Interdisciplinary Research Spotlight in Digital. This is a university's initiative to coordinate its research activities within AI, Data Science, Quantum Computing, Cyber Physical, and many more areas, focusing on the collaborative and interdisciplinary aspects. With my team, our goal is to create a community of excellence for interdisciplinary research, placing 糖心TV as a recognised global leader in digital research.

PhD studentships, internships

Prospective students: I am always looking for bright students with strong maths/stats/CS background. If you want to do a PhD with me then I would expect you to contact me by Sept/Oct. If your enquiries/research topic proposal are inline with my research, I will very likely respond to your email.

糖心TV students: If you would like to do an internship with me, the best way to do is through the URSS schemeLink opens in a new window.

Current duties:

Deputy Head (Director of Research), dept. of Computer Science, 糖心TV.
Chair, 糖心TV Interdisciplinary Research Spotlight in Digital.
Associate Editor of Artificial Intelligence, the flagship journal in AI.
Associate Editor for the journal of Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (JAAMAS), the flagship journal in multiagent systems research.

Past duties:

Member of the (2018-2024), the main governing body of the international community of autonomous agents and multiagent systems.
Member of the AI Advisory Board, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam (2020-2030).
Scientific advisor for (previously I was its Chief Scientific Officer).
Scientific advisor for .
Principal Scientist (advisory role) at FPT Software (QAI division).

Awards and recognitions

Research:

AIJ Prominent Paper Award 2021
IJCAI 2019 Early Career Spotlight Talk (invited)
Vice-Chancellor's Award 2018 (Southampton)
Royal Society's Kan Tong Po Visiting Fellowship 2017
University of Southern California's CAIS Visiting Fellow 2017
Runner-up - CPHC/BCS PhD Dissertation Award (Best Computer Science PhD thesis in the UK) in 2012/2013
Honourable mention - ECCAI PhD Dissertation Award (Outstanding European PhD thesis in artificial intelligence) in 2012
Honourable mention - AAAI 2012 Outstanding Paper Award
Runner-up - ECAI 2012 Best Student Paper Award

Teaching:

Dean's Award 2017 (Faculty of Physical Sciences and Engineering, Southampton)
Most Engaging Lecturer in 2016 (Southampton)

Publications

profile

Recent talks:

Seminar talk at Monash University on data poisoning against bandits and how to defend (2024):
My keynote talk at OptLearnMAS 2021 on multi-agent strategic learning: videoLink opens in a new window
UMD College Park (6th Nov 2024) - hosted by
JAIST, Japan (19th Nov 2024) - hosted by
(20th Nov 2024) - Kyoto, Japan
Lancaster University (6th March 2025)

Upcoming talks:

University of Durham (23rd Febr 2026) - online presentation (invited by )
University of Manchester (24th Febr 2026) - hosted by Prof and Dr
NTU and NUS (March 2026?)

Research group:

Current PhD students

Luke MeredithLink opens in a new window
Phurinut SrisawadLink opens in a new window
(Southampton, graduating end of 2025)

Past supervisees

(PhD student, Southampton, 2015-18) - decentralised constraint optimisation problems - Last known position: Assoc. Prof. at Univ. of Dhaka, Bangladesh.
(PhD student, Southampton, 2015-19) - Bayesian inference techniques in crowdsourcing - Last known position: Assist. Prof. at University of Manchester, UK.
(postdoc, Southampton, 2016-2019) – truthful mechanisms for secure traffic control systems. Last known position: Lecturer (Assist. Prof.) at University of Porthsmouth, UK.
(PhD student, Southampton, 2015-19) - incentive engineering in crowdsourcing systems. Last known position: industry.
(PhD student, Southampton, 2017-2021) - vulnerability analysis of trust systems in AI (co-supervised with Tim Norman) – Last known position: CTO at , UK.
(PhD student, Southampton, 2016-2021) - selfish mining in multi-agent blockchain systems (co-supervised with Seb Stein) – Last known position: lecturer (Assist. Prof.) at University of Winchester, UK.
(PhD student, Southampton, 2018-2021) - influence maximisation games (co-supervised with Markus Brede) – Last known position: postdoc at University of Edinburgh, UK.
(PhD student, Southampton, 2018-2022) - bilevel optimisation problems in machine learning (co-supervised with Enrico Gerding) – Last known position: postdoc at University of Oxford, UK.
(PhD student, Southampton, 2018-2023) - learning and last round convergence in asymmetric games (co-supervised with Tri-Dung Nguyen and Alain Zemkoho) - Last known position: quant researcher VP at a major investment bank in London, UK.
(PhD student, Southampton, 2019-2023) - algebraic topology and its applications in machine learning (co-supervised with Ruben Sanchez Garcia) – Last known position: postdoc at the Alan Turing Institute, UK.
(PhD student, 糖心TV, 2021-2025) - geometric structures in multi-agent learning – Last known position: postdoc at Inria Lille, France.

Some personal info

I was born in Hue, Vietnam but grew up in Budapest, Hungary. My favourite food are and .
My Erdos number is 3.
My favourite high school maths journal: .
My sister's . Some other of her songs from and .
A wiki page about my maternal great-grandfather: .