SCS Alum Wins Top SIGecom Dissertation Award

Gabriele Farina, who earned his Ph.D. from the Computer Science Department in 2023, has won the Association for Computing Machinery's Special Interest Group on Economics and Computation (ACM SIGecom) Dissertation Award, which recognizes the previous year's best dissertation in economics and computation.

Farina's thesis, "Game-Theoretic Decision Making in Imperfect-Information Games: Learning Dynamics, Equilibrium Computation and Complexity" focused on imperfect-information extensive-form games, such as poker or negotiations. His work addressed challenges in these games and provided theoretical and algorithmic foundations for strategic, game-theoretic decision-making. His thesis adviser was Tuomas Sandholm, the Angel Jordan University Professor of Computer Science.

Farina's research details the fundamental computation of equilibria in imperfect information games and how to use learning in these computations. It also shares how to employ learning to compute extensive form-correlated and team equilibria. His work also examines what happens when human players are introduced into these models.

Farina is now an assistant professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department. Learn more about the award on the ACM Special Interest Group on Economics and Computation website.