PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Niao He

Niao He is a computer scientist whose work on optimization underpins reinforcement learning and other data-driven decision-making. She studied mathematics at the University of Science and Technology of China, earned a Georgia Tech Ph.D. in operations research in 2015 under Arkadi Nemirovski, and served as an assistant professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign from 2016 to 2020. Her coauthored papers include Particle Mirror Descent, a 2016 Notable Student Paper at AISTATS, and SBEED, a reinforcement learning algorithm presented at ICML 2018. She moved to ETH Zurich in 2020, became an ELLIS Scholar in 2021, and was promoted to associate professor in December 2024. She is an associate professor of computer science at ETH Zurich, where she leads the Optimization & Decision Intelligence Group.

Timeline

  1. 2010–2015

    Georgia Tech doctorate with Nemirovski

    She earns a B.S. in mathematics at the University of Science and Technology of China in 2010. At Georgia Tech she completes an M.S. in computational science and engineering and, in the School of Industrial & Systems Engineering, a Ph.D. in operations research under advisor Arkadi Nemirovski in 2015.

  2. 2016–2020

    Assistant professor at Illinois

    From January 2016 to December 2020, she is an assistant professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, in Industrial and Systems Engineering and the Coordinated Science Laboratory. She is named an NCSA Faculty Fellow and receives an NSF CISE CRII Award in 2018, and she is a CAS Beckman Fellow in 2020.

  3. 2016

    Particle mirror descent at AISTATS

    In 2016, she coauthors Provable Bayesian Inference via Particle Mirror Descent with Bo Dai, Hanjun Dai and Le Song. The paper proposes the Particle Mirror Descent algorithm to approximate posterior densities, and AISTATS 2016 lists it among its Notable Student Paper Awards.

  4. 2018

    SBEED for reinforcement learning

    In 2018, she coauthors SBEED: Convergent Reinforcement Learning with Nonlinear Function Approximation with Bo Dai, Lihong Li, Lin Xiao, Le Song and others, presented at the 35th International Conference on Machine Learning. The paper reformulates the Bellman equation as a primal-dual optimization problem and develops the Smoothed Bellman Error Embedding algorithm, which accepts any differentiable function class.

  5. 2020–2024

    Assistant professor at ETH Zurich

    In July 2020, the ETH Board appoints her tenure-track assistant professor of data science, expecting the appointment to strengthen the Department of Computer Science in machine learning and artificial intelligence. From December 2020 to December 2024, she holds the rank in ETH Zurich's Department of Computer Science.

  6. 2021–2023

    ELLIS Scholar and center co-director

    In 2021, she is named an ELLIS Scholar. At the end of May 2023, she takes over from Thomas Hofmann as the ETH Co-Director of the Max Planck ETH Center for Learning Systems.

  7. December 2024

    Promotion to associate professor

    In December 2024, the ETH Board promotes her to associate professor of computer science, describing her work as mathematical optimisation and the basics and methods of intelligent decision-making. The announcement notes her success in attracting funding, including an SNSF Starting Grant.

  8. Since 2025

    Leading the ODI Group

    She is an associate professor of computer science at ETH Zurich from January 2025, leading the Optimization & Decision Intelligence (ODI) Group, whose interests span optimization for efficient AI, reinforcement learning, multi-agent systems, generative models and LLMs. In 2026, NCCR Automation names her among six of its PIs honoured as Top 100+ Women in AI, Data & Robotics – Switzerland 2026.

Career

  1. Since 2020ETH ZurichTenure-Track Assistant Professor of Data Science, Associate Professor of Computer Science
  2. From 2023Max Planck–ETH Center for Learning SystemsCo-Director
  3. 2016–2020University of Illinois Urbana-ChampaignAssistant Professor

Education

  1. 2015Georgia Institute of TechnologyM.S.
  2. 2010University of Science and Technology of ChinaB.S.

From the biography.

  1. The median h-index is 48 at universities and 14 at frontier AI labsIncludes ETH Zurich. The median h-index is 48 at universities and 14 at frontier AI labs. We compare publishing careers, recent citations, dual appointments and job moves across 2,420 university researchers and 308 frontier-lab researchers.
  2. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology trained or employed 44 of the 187 AI major-prize winners, more than any other universityIncludes ETH Zurich. 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. The company share of AI researchers’ top papers was 31% in 2020–2024 and 8% in 1970–1974Includes ETH Zurich. 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.
  4. Universities had a net outflow of 2,068 moves in AI careersIncludes ETH Zurich. Our estimates of career flows and median h-index across universities and companies in AI, including the role of joint appointments and earlier academic jobs.

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. Niao He · ODI odi.inf.ethz.ch. Checked 22 October 2026.
  2. Notable Student Posters | Artificial Intelligence and Statistics Conference aistats.org. Checked 22 October 2026.
  3. Provable Bayesian Inference via Particle Mirror Descent proceedings.mlr.press. Checked 22 October 2026.
  4. SBEED: Convergent Reinforcement Learning with Nonlinear Function Approximation proceedings.mlr.press. Checked 22 October 2026.
  5. New professors: four women and four men ethz.ch. Checked 22 October 2026.
  6. Niao He becomes new CLS Co-Director for the ETH side learning-systems.org. Checked 22 October 2026.
  7. Nine professors appointed ethz.ch. Checked 22 October 2026.
  8. Six PIs honoured as Top 100+ Women in AI, Data & Robotics – Switzerland 2026 nccr-automation.ch. Checked 22 October 2026.