Portrait of Doina Precup

Doina Precup

Core Academic Member
Canada CIFAR AI Chair
Associate Professor, McGill University, School of Computer Science
Research Team Leader, Google DeepMind
Research Topics
Medical Machine Learning
Molecular Modeling
Probabilistic Models
Reasoning
Reinforcement Learning

Biography

Doina Precup combines teaching at McGill University with fundamental research on reinforcement learning, in particular AI applications in areas of significant social impact, such as health care. She is interested in machine decision-making in situations where uncertainty is high.

In addition to heading the Montreal office of Google DeepMind, Precup is a Senior Fellow of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research and a Fellow of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence.

Her areas of speciality are artificial intelligence, machine learning, reinforcement learning, reasoning and planning under uncertainty, and applications.

Current Students

PhD - McGill University
Collaborating Alumni - McGill University
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Collaborating Alumni - McGill University
Collaborating Alumni - McGill University
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PhD - McGill University
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PhD - McGill University
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Master's Research - McGill University
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Collaborating researcher - McGill University
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Collaborating researcher - Université de Montréal
PhD - McGill University
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PhD - McGill University
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Collaborating researcher - Birla Institute of Technology
PhD - McGill University
Collaborating Alumni - McGill University
Master's Research - McGill University
Collaborating Alumni - McGill University
PhD - Polytechnique Montréal
PhD - McGill University
Postdoctorate - McGill University
Collaborating Alumni - McGill University
Collaborating Alumni - McGill University
PhD - McGill University
Principal supervisor :
PhD - McGill University
Collaborating Alumni - McGill University
Master's Research - McGill University
Principal supervisor :
Collaborating researcher - McGill University
Co-supervisor :
PhD - Université de Montréal
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PhD - McGill University
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PhD - McGill University
Principal supervisor :
PhD - McGill University
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PhD - McGill University
Co-supervisor :
PhD - McGill University
Co-supervisor :
PhD - McGill University
PhD - McGill University
Co-supervisor :
PhD - McGill University
Research Intern - McGill University
Master's Research - McGill University
Co-supervisor :
PhD - McGill University
Principal supervisor :
PhD - McGill University
Collaborating Alumni - McGill University
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Publications

Fluid-Agent Reinforcement Learning
Theodore J. Perkins
The primary focus of multi-agent reinforcement learning (MARL) has been to study interactions among a fixed number of agents embedded in an … (see more)environment. However, in the real world, the number of agents is neither fixed nor known a priori. Moreover, an agent can decide to create other agents (for example, a cell may divide, or a company may spin off a division). In this paper, we propose a framework that allows agents to create other agents; we call this a fluid-agent environment. We present game-theoretic solution concepts for fluid-agent games and empirically evaluate the performance of several MARL algorithms within this framework. Our experiments include fluid variants of established benchmarks such as Predator-Prey and Level-Based Foraging, where agents can dynamically spawn, as well as a new environment we introduce that highlights how fluidity can unlock novel solution strategies beyond those observed in fixed-population settings. We demonstrate that this framework yields agent teams that adjust their size dynamically to match environmental demands.
Pregnancy AI: Development and Internal Validation of an Artificial Intelligence Tool to Predict Live Births in ICSI and IVF Cycles Using Clinical Features and Embryo Images
Penelope Borduas
Isaac-Jacques Kadoch
Simon Phillips
Daniel Dufort
Affordances Enable Partial World Modeling with LLMs
Gheorghe Comanici
Jonathan Richens
Jeremy Shar
Fei Xia
Laurent Orseau
Aleksandra Faust
Large Language Model Applications in the Algebra Domain: A Systematic Review
On Mobile Ad Hoc Networks for Coverage of Partially Observable Worlds
Shuo Wen
Louis-Roy Langevin
Antonio Lor'ia
On the geometry and topology of representations: the manifolds of modular addition
The Clock and Pizza interpretations, associated with architectures differing in either uniform or learnable attention, were introduced to ar… (see more)gue that different architectural designs can yield distinct circuits for modular addition. In this work, we show that this is not the case, and that both uniform attention and trainable attention architectures implement the same algorithm via topologically and geometrically equivalent representations. Our methodology goes beyond the interpretation of individual neurons and weights. Instead, we identify all of the neurons corresponding to each learned representation and then study the collective group of neurons as one entity. This method reveals that each learned representation is a manifold that we can study utilizing tools from topology. Based on this insight, we can statistically analyze the learned representations across hundreds of circuits to demonstrate the similarity between learned modular addition circuits that arise naturally from common deep learning paradigms.
Excitatory-Inhibitory Dynamics in Adaptive Decision-Making
The Geometry and Topology of Modular Addition Representations
The Clock and Pizza interpretations, associated with neural architectures differing in either uniform or learnable attention, were introduce… (see more)d to argue that different architectural designs can yield distinct circuits for modular addition. Applying geometric and topological analyses to learned representations, we show that this is not the case: Clock and Pizza circuits are topologically and geometrically equivalent and are thus equivalent representations.
Incorporating Spatial Information into Goal-Conditioned Hierarchical Reinforcement Learning via Graph Representations
The integration of graphs with Goal-conditioned Hierarchical Reinforcement Learning (GCHRL) has recently gained attention, as intermediate g… (see more)oals (subgoals) can be effectively sampled from graphs that naturally represent the overall task structure in most RL tasks. However, existing approaches typically rely on domain-specific knowledge to construct these graphs, limiting their applicability to new tasks. Other graph-based approaches create graphs dynamically during exploration but struggle to fully utilize them, because they have problems passing the information in the graphs to newly visited states. Additionally, current GCHRL methods face challenges such as sample inefficiency and poor subgoal representation. This paper proposes a solution to these issues by developing a graph encoder-decoder to evaluate unseen states. Our proposed method, Graph-Guided sub-Goal representation Generation RL (G4RL), can be incorporated into any existing GCHRL method when operating in environments with primarily symmetric and reversible transitions to enhance performance across this class of problems. We show that the graph encoder-decoder can be effectively implemented using a network trained on the state graph generated during exploration. Empirical results indicate that leveraging high and low-level intrinsic rewards from the graph encoder-decoder significantly enhances the performance of state-of-the-art GCHRL approaches with an extra small computational cost in dense and sparse reward environments.
Incorporating Spatial Information into Goal-Conditioned Hierarchical Reinforcement Learning via Graph Representations
The integration of graphs with Goal-conditioned Hierarchical Reinforcement Learning (GCHRL) has recently gained attention, as intermediate g… (see more)oals (subgoals) can be effectively sampled from graphs that naturally represent the overall task structure in most RL tasks. However, existing approaches typically rely on domain-specific knowledge to construct these graphs, limiting their applicability to new tasks. Other graph-based approaches create graphs dynamically during exploration but struggle to fully utilize them, because they have problems passing the information in the graphs to newly visited states. Additionally, current GCHRL methods face challenges such as sample inefficiency and poor subgoal representation. This paper proposes a solution to these issues by developing a graph encoder-decoder to evaluate unseen states. Our proposed method, Graph-Guided sub-Goal representation Generation RL (G4RL), can be incorporated into any existing GCHRL method when operating in environments with primarily symmetric and reversible transitions to enhance performance across this class of problems. We show that the graph encoder-decoder can be effectively implemented using a network trained on the state graph generated during exploration. Empirical results indicate that leveraging high and low-level intrinsic rewards from the graph encoder-decoder significantly enhances the performance of state-of-the-art GCHRL approaches with an extra small computational cost in dense and sparse reward environments.
Rejecting Hallucinated State Targets during Planning
In planning processes of computational decision-making agents, generative or predictive models are often used as "generators" to propose "ta… (see more)rgets" representing sets of expected or desirable states. Unfortunately, learned models inevitably hallucinate infeasible targets that can cause delusional behaviors and safety concerns. We first investigate the kinds of infeasible targets that generators can hallucinate. Then, we devise a strategy to identify and reject infeasible targets by learning a target feasibility evaluator. To ensure that the evaluator is robust and non-delusional, we adopted a design choice combining off-policy compatible learning rule, distributional architecture, and data augmentation based on hindsight relabeling. Attaching to a planning agent, the designed evaluator learns by observing the agent’s interactions with the environment and the targets produced by its generator, without the need to change the agent or its generator. Our controlled experiments show significant reductions in delusional behaviors and performance improvements for various kinds of existing agents.
Reward the Reward Designer: Making Reinforcement Learning Useful for Clinical Decision Making