PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Kaiqing Zhang

Kaiqing Zhang is a researcher whose work on reinforcement learning, game theory and control theory addresses how learning agents make decisions together and under uncertainty. He earned a doctorate in electrical and computer engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign under Tamer Başar, defending in August 2021, and then worked as a postdoc at MIT. In 2022 he coauthored an ICML Outstanding Paper on differentiable simulators and policy gradients, and received the CSL thesis award for his doctoral work. An NSF CAREER Award in 2024, an AFOSR Young Investigator Program Award in 2025 and the 2026 Eckman Award from the American Automatic Control Council followed. He is an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Maryland, College Park.

Timeline

  1. 2021

    A Ph.D. with Tamer Başar

    He earns a B.E. at Tsinghua University, two M.S. degrees in electrical and computer engineering and applied mathematics at UIUC, and a Ph.D. in electrical and computer engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, advised by Tamer Başar. He defends the Ph.D. in August 2021.

  2. 2021–2022

    MIT postdoc and Simons fellowship

    He starts a postdoc at MIT in May 2021, affiliated with LIDS and CSAIL and working with Asu Ozdaglar, Russ Tedrake and Constantinos Daskalakis. From January to May 2022, he is a Research Fellow at the Simons Institute at Berkeley for the Learning and Games program.

  3. 2022

    ICML Outstanding Paper Award

    With Hyung Ju Suh, Max Simchowitz and Russ Tedrake, he writes "Do Differentiable Simulators Give Better Policy Gradients?", published at ICML 2022. The paper shows that stiffness or discontinuities in physical systems may compromise first-order gradient estimates for reinforcement learning, and ICML selects it for an Outstanding Paper Award in July 2022.

  4. October 2022

    CSL Ph.D. Thesis Award

    He receives the CSL Ph.D. Thesis Award in October 2022 for contributions in reinforcement learning, control theory and game theory.

  5. December 2024

    An NSF CAREER Award

    He receives a National Science Foundation CAREER Award in December 2024, and AAAI recognizes him in New Faculty Highlights 2025 in December 2024.

  6. February 2025

    AFOSR Young Investigator Award

    He receives an Air Force Office of Scientific Research Young Investigator Program Award in February 2025.

  7. May 2026

    The Eckman Award

    He receives the Donald P. Eckman Award from the American Automatic Control Council in May 2026. The award recognizes a young researcher under the age of 35 in control theory.

  8. As of October 2026

    Professor at Maryland

    He is an assistant professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and the Institute for Systems Research at the University of Maryland, College Park, with an affiliated appointment in Computer Science. His research interests lie in systems and control theory, reinforcement and machine learning, game theory and robotics.

Career

  1. NowUniversity of MarylandAssistant Professor
  2. 2022University of California, BerkeleyResearch Fellow
  3. 2021–2022Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyPostdoctoral Researcher
  4. 2021–2022MIT CSAILPostdoctoral Researcher

Education

  1. 2021University of Illinois Urbana-ChampaignTwo M.S. degrees
  2. Tsinghua UniversityB.E.

From the biography.

  1. People shaping AI work at a median of 3 organizations over a career: 3 for university starters and institute and lab starters, versus 2 for company startersIncludes University of Maryland. Across 6,853 people shaping AI with a dated work role, we estimate a median of 3 parent organizations over a career (mean 3.6), comparing role groups, starting sectors and starting decades from the 1950s to 2020–2026.
  2. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology trained or employed 44 of the 187 AI major-prize winners, more than any other universityIncludes University of Maryland. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology trained or employed 44 of the 187 AI major-prize winners, more than any other university. We compare doctorate and 5+ year employment links, career timing and current workplaces for 187 major-prize and 1,111 best-paper winners.
  3. More people shaping AI studied at Massachusetts Institute of Technology than at any other institutionIncludes Massachusetts Institute of Technology. We estimate where the people shaping AI studied and where their careers led. Massachusetts Institute of Technology leads with 467 former students, including 291 recorded doctorates.
  4. The company share of AI researchers’ top papers was 31% in 2020–2024 and 8% in 1970–1974Includes University of Maryland. We estimate where the people shaping AI worked when their most-cited papers appeared: the company share was 31% in 2020–2024 and 8% in 1970–1974, and Google led all organizations in 2020–2024.

Colleagues

People named in this biography, and people with dated positions at the same organization in the same years.

Sources and credits

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  1. Kaiqing Zhang simons.berkeley.edu. Checked 21 October 2026.
  2. Kaiqing Zhang's Homepage kzhang66.github.io. Checked 21 October 2026.
  3. ICML 2022 Awards icml.cc. Checked 21 October 2026.
  4. Do Differentiable Simulators Give Better Policy Gradients? proceedings.mlr.press. Checked 21 October 2026.
  5. Donald P. Eckman Award - Wikipedia en.wikipedia.org. Checked 21 October 2026.