Optimization for Artificial Intelligence (OptimAI) Lab

Contact Information

6-109 Keller Hall
University of Minnesota - Twin Cities
Minneapolis, MN 55455
TEL: (612)-625-3505
Email: mhong at umn.edu
Group GitHub Page https://github.com/OptimAI-Lab
Group X (Twitter): https://x.com/OptimAI_LAB
Personal X (Twitter): https://x.com/Mingyi552237

Research Interests

Our research focus on designing and analyzing optimization methods for problems arise in various domains, and especially in such as data science, machine learning and AI

Below is a list of (more or less) theoretical topics that we have worked on.

  • Design and Analysis for first-order/zeroth-order, stochastic, convex and nonconvex algorithms

  • Design and Analysis for Momentum-Based Methods

  • Bi-level, Min-Max optimization problems

  • Analysis of equilibrium solutions for noncooperative games

Our theoretical works are greatly empowered by their applications in various engineering fields.

  • LLM Agents

  • Alignment for Large Language Models, and Diffusion Models

  • Robust (Adversarial) Machine Learning

  • Inverse Reinforcement Learning, and Structural Estimation Problems

  • Differential Privacy

  • Scalable pertaining algorithms

Group Photos

600 
600 

May 2025, Siliang Defense

600 

Sept 2024, Group Kayak Activity, with visiting student Chung You Yau from CUHK.

2000 

Dec 2023, Group at NeurIPS 2023

400 

Xinwei defense, Nov 2023

1000 

Group Kayak, Sept 2023

1500 

Xiangyi Graduation, May 2022

1500 

Xiangyi Graduation Dinner, May 2022

1500 

Group Hiking, Oct. 2022

1500 

Group Escape Room, Dec. 2022

1500 

Group Kayak, Sept 2023

1500 

Xinwei Graduation Dinner, Nov. 2023

1500 

Xinwei Defense, Nov. 2023