iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Cathy Wu @cathywu.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

I am happy to announce that for the first time my group is participating in the MIT-UF-NEU 2026 Joint Summer Research Camp. Applications are open until April 17. More info in thread and here: www.wucathy.com/prospective/

111

Cathy Wu @cathywu.bsky.social · 27/03/2026

If pure AI or pure search isn't working for you, consider learning-guided optimization! This approach combines the best of both worlds; our most recent work demonstrates this for coordinating agents in warehouse robotics.

130

Reposted by Cathy Wu

David Zipper @davidzipper.bsky.social · 17/03/2026

MIT prof @cathywu.bsky.social suspected that nav apps inaccurately calculate “time to arrive,” esp re: parking. In a new paper, she and colleagues built a model to direct urban drivers to garages that best balance proximity and likelihood of an open spot. Result: Drivers could save up to 35 min.

news.mit.edu

Parking-aware navigation system could prevent frustration and emissions

By minimizing the need to drive around looking for a parking spot, this technique can save drivers up to 35 minutes — and give them a realistic estimate of total travel time.

1395

Cathy Wu @cathywu.bsky.social · 23/02/2026

What's an energy-efficient way to shovel snow? Introducing eco-shoveling*, a two-stage technique to handle snow accumulation, while conserving energy in preparation for more shoveling later... Built to withstand three winter storms.

110

Cathy Wu @cathywu.bsky.social · 22/02/2026

Did something happen to the “my bangers” feed of your top bluesky posts? Is there an alternative?

100

Reposted by Cathy Wu

David Zipper @davidzipper.bsky.social · 20/02/2026

New research from @cathywu.bsky.social et al. confirms something I've long suspected: Navigation apps could save their users a lot of time — and tilt travel decisions toward transit and biking — if they showed users how long it takes to find parking.

news.mit.edu

Parking-aware navigation system could prevent frustration and emissions

By minimizing the need to drive around looking for a parking spot, this technique can save drivers up to 35 minutes — and give them a realistic estimate of total travel time.

1130284

Cathy Wu @cathywu.bsky.social · 19/02/2026

Have you noticed how navigation apps include walking & waiting for public transit, but excludes parking & walking for driving? After being late a few times 😅, we finally did. We got curious: what if these apps account for parking?

67934

Cathy Wu @cathywu.bsky.social · 03/02/2026

📣 𝗣𝗼𝘀𝘁𝗱𝗼𝗰 𝗼𝗽𝗲𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴𝘀 𝗶𝗻 𝗺𝘆 𝗴𝗿𝗼𝘂𝗽! I’m looking to hire 𝟭–𝟮 𝗽𝗼𝘀𝘁𝗱𝗼𝗰𝘀 to work with us across the group’s research areas, including: 🤖 Deep reinforcement learning 🚦 Traffic modeling & control 🧠 Neural combinatorial optimization

cathywu.github.io

Prospective Members

Faster, evidence-based decisions for sociotechnical systems

1107

Reposted by Cathy Wu

Jack Stilgoe @jackstilgoe.bsky.social · 05/09/2025

I'm gearing up for next week's Hype Studies conference in Barcelona, so I'm thinking about this stuff a lot. @davekarpf.bsky.social makes some great points here, but there's a 'Yes and...'

davekarpf.substack.com

Tesla's Roadmap to Nowhere

I'll give him this: Elon Musk has a solid grasp of futurity-as-PR.

1195

Cathy Wu @cathywu.bsky.social · 18/08/2025

We should be asking ourselves more what research should be done vs what research can be done

1256

Cathy Wu @cathywu.bsky.social · 12/08/2025

🔥 New workshop at @neuripsconf.bsky.social! DiffCoALG bridges the gap between classic algorithms & differentiable learning. Think: LLM reasoning, routing, SAT, MIP — neurally optimized. 📌 Submit by Aug 22! 🤖🧠 🔗 sites.google.com/view/diffcoa... #NeurIPS2025

sites.google.com

DiffCoALG@NeurIPS 2025

About this Workshop Combinatorial algorithms are fundamental across a wide range of domains, owing to their ability to model optimization and decision-making tasks under complex constraints. These alg...

1104

Cathy Wu @cathywu.bsky.social · 11/08/2025

This project was 4 years in the making and it's finally out! We found that controlling vehicle speeds to mitigate traffic across a city can cut carbon emissions between 11 and 22 percent. To do this, we used deep reinforcement learning to optimize one million eco-driving scenarios. 🚗🤖🧠

15217

Reposted by Cathy Wu

MIT CEE @mitcee.bsky.social · 11/08/2025

A new study led by Prof. Cathy Wu and colleagues reveals that eco-driving measures, such as dynamically adjusting vehicle speeds to reduce stopping and excessive acceleration, can cut carbon emissions between 11 and 22 percent. news.mit.edu/2025/eco-dri...

news.mit.edu

Eco-driving measures could significantly reduce vehicle emissions

Implementing co-driving techniques, like the use of intelligent speed controls to mitigate congestion at traffic lights, can significantly reduce intersection carbon dioxide emissions without…

022

Cathy Wu @cathywu.bsky.social · 05/08/2025

We’ve got an awesome workshop tomorrow at RLC on real-world RL! Also, I’m moderating the panel, so let me know if you have questions about applying RL. 🤖🧠🤖

030

Reposted by Cathy Wu

Reinforcement Learning Conference @rl-conference.bsky.social · 25/06/2025

Propose some socials for RLC! Research topics, affinity groups, niche interests, whatever comes to mind! rl-conference.cc/call_for_soc...

rl-conference.cc

RLC Call for Workshops

0118

Reposted by Cathy Wu

Nathan Lambert @natolambert.bsky.social · 23/06/2025

Trying to make Ai2 so effective that people start seriously referring to us as "American DeepSeek" 🙏 lots of hard work to do.

3251

Reposted by Cathy Wu

Eugene Vinitsky 🍒 @eugenevinitsky.bsky.social · 21/06/2025

Hiring a postdoc to scale up and deploy RL-based planning onto some self-driving cars! We'll be building on arxiv.org/abs/2502.03349 and learn what the limits and challenges of RL planning are. Shoot me a message if interested and help spread the word please! Full posting to come in a bit.

arxiv.org

Robust Autonomy Emerges from Self-Play

Self-play has powered breakthroughs in two-player and multi-player games. Here we show that self-play is a surprisingly effective strategy in another domain. We show that robust and naturalistic drivi...

36025

Cathy Wu @cathywu.bsky.social · 09/06/2025

This is soooooo fun and so blazingly fast.

000

Cathy Wu @cathywu.bsky.social · 04/06/2025

Feeling like a fish learning about water. Insightful thread

020

Cathy Wu @cathywu.bsky.social · 04/06/2025

I’m incredibly happy to have found metascience bluesky. Science is messy and beautiful, and there is a group of people thinking hard about how and why.

1191

Cathy Wu @cathywu.bsky.social · 03/06/2025

I’m pretty shocked. I was just appointed to a serve on a standing committee in April. TRB has definitely helped me find my footing in the field.

060

Reposted by Cathy Wu

Carole Voulgaris @voulgaris.bsky.social · 02/06/2025

Organizations and conferences that have the potential to partially fill the void left by TRB (a thread):

61911

Cathy Wu @cathywu.bsky.social · 02/06/2025

Science is a journey not a destination.

061

Cathy Wu @cathywu.bsky.social · 02/06/2025

This is the way to cross a freeway. 😍 Breathtaking walkway across SR-520 in Redmond, WA at Microsoft Campus🚶‍♀️🚲🛣️

Beautiful pavilion-topped pedestrian walkway and bike path along 40th street across SR-520 in Redmond, WA

050

Cathy Wu @cathywu.bsky.social · 01/06/2025

Great advice in here. “Aim to have such a high growth rate that you cringe looking back at yourself a year ago.”

051

Cathy Wu @cathywu.bsky.social · 31/05/2025

This will mean 75% fewer NSF grants to award…

152

Reposted by Cathy Wu

Adriana Bankston @abankston.bsky.social · 24/05/2025

As citizens concerned about the future #STEM #workforce, we want to hear stories and impacts of #federal #funding cuts on early career #scientists. Take the surveys by June 6! @scienceforgood.bsky.social @jpflores.rbind.io Impacts survey: bit.ly/3Z1aFPj Stories survey: bit.ly/3Sghx7R #savescience

Are you an early career scientist impacted by federal research funding cuts? We want to hear your views and stories! Impacts survey: https://bit.ly/3Z1aFPj
Stories survey: https://bit.ly/3Sghx7R. Open May 23 - June 6, 2025.

1912

Cathy Wu @cathywu.bsky.social · 26/05/2025

📣 I will be giving two talks this week at the TRB DATA conference in Seattle, which explores the intersection of transportation, artificial Intelligence, and data analysis. I love these practitioner + researcher conferences. 🤖🧠👇

Flyer announcing Prof. Cathy Wu from MIT presenting at the TRB Conference on Data and AI for Transportation Advancement. Two sessions are highlighted: one on May 28 about accelerating transportation research transparency practices, and another on May 29 about mitigating metropolitan carbon emissions using dynamic eco-driving.

164

Reposted by Cathy Wu

Min-Hung Chen @cmhungsteve.bsky.social · 21/05/2025

📢 Excited to share the first X-Sense Workshop: Ego-Exo Sensing for Smart Mobility @iccv.bsky.social with outstanding speakers!! x-sense-ego-exo.github.io Please stay tuned for the Call for Papers #ICCV2025 #ICCV #ICCV25 #NYCU #Cornell #NVIDIA #USYD #MIT #UCSD #TUDelft #UCLA #NEC #Stanford

043

Cathy Wu @cathywu.bsky.social · 25/05/2025

📣 #RERITE 's first conference presentation will take place tomorrow at the Transportation Research Symposium at Rotterdam in The Netherlands! 🚂🛣️ We use Large Language Models (LLMs) to measure the state of data & code availability in transportation research. Join to learn: 👇

Flyer announcing a presentation at the Transportation Research Symposium 2025, scheduled for Monday, May 26, 13:15-15:15 in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. Session topic is 'Traffic control in the era of new technologies,' with the presentation titled 'Towards Accelerating Transportation Research: Measuring the State of Transparency Practices.' Multiple authors from various international institutions are listed, including Ruth Lu, an undergraduate researcher at MIT, whose photo is featured prominently. A QR code and the website rerite.org are displayed in the upper right corner. The flyer background is orange with black and white text.

152

Reposted by Cathy Wu

Guillaume Dalle @gdalle.bsky.social · 23/05/2025

If you’re working on machine learning for combinatorial optimization, a new benchmark just dropped. What makes it different from the ones used in individual papers? 1) It covers 8 standard problems 2) It comes from recognized datasets and competitions 3) It’s really hard! arxiv.org/abs/2505.16952

arxiv.org

A Comprehensive Evaluation of Contemporary ML-Based Solvers for Combinatorial Optimization

Machine learning (ML) has demonstrated considerable potential in supporting model design and optimization for combinatorial optimization (CO) problems. However, much of the progress to date has been e...

0224

Reposted by Cathy Wu

EWRL @ewrl-org.bsky.social · 23/05/2025

News!⚡ We’re pleased to announce a new Call for Contributed Talks to bring novel and diverse viewpoints to EWRL2025. Early-career researchers are especially encouraged to submit proposals and share their work with the community. Full details: euro-workshop-on-reinforcement-learning.github.io/ewrl18/

0116

Cathy Wu @cathywu.bsky.social · 24/05/2025

What an utter delight to be taking Sound Transit’s new light rail line!!! (2 Line) 🚉 🌆 #transit

Light rail train platform at Downtown Bellevue towards Downtown Redmond

080

Reposted by Cathy Wu

Sung Kim @sungkim.bsky.social · 23/05/2025

It looks like AI companies are carving out distinct niches: - OpenAI is focused on consumer AI - Anthropic is leaning into coding and developer tools - Google... is just being Google

1162

Reposted by Cathy Wu

RL for Real Systems @RLC2025 @rl4rsworkshop.bsky.social · 20/05/2025

🚨 10 days left to submit to RL4RS workshop @ RLC 2025! 🤖💡 Consider sharing your insights if you're working on applied RL in industry, society, or critical systems! Cfp: rl4rs.github.io/RL4RS/call_f...

rl4rs.github.io

Call For Papers

Workshop on on Practical Insights into RL for Real Systems.

023

Reposted by Cathy Wu

Safe Systems Civil Engineer @cityengineer.bsky.social · 03/05/2025

Why isn’t there a “War on Zoning” podcast? It’s the very thing that creates people needing cars and our insanely higher traffic levels. #HousingNotInvestments

241

Cathy Wu @cathywu.bsky.social · 18/05/2025

This policy memo from The Techno‑Industrial Policy Playbook nicely discusses current challenges with federal hiring of tech policy talent. In short: - Process is slow (6-9 months; hey, in academia, we are used to that!) - Bad titles (a name is not just a name!) 👇

130

Cathy Wu @cathywu.bsky.social · 16/05/2025

In China’s Taizhou’s industrial zones, fully autonomous trucks now handle nearly a third of last-mile deliveries. They are not only autonomous but also connected. They reduce collisions and optimize traffic flow by sharing data like velocity and road conditions. www.fastcompany.com/91327028/chi...

fastcompany.com

China is shaping the future of shipping with a new army of ghost trucks

Beijing has set autonomous logistics as one of its priority objectives for its 2030 national agenda. It appears its aggressive plan is working.

35111

Cathy Wu @cathywu.bsky.social · 16/05/2025

Some use cases of connected vehicle data (onboard sensing beyond smartphone GPS): - Lane-level resolution is especially useful for monitoring work zones - Friction data is directly useful for informing surface conditions (ice, etc.), which has safety implications www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYre...

youtube.com

Integrating Connected Vehicle Data into Winter Operations | Research | 2023 CCAT Symposium

YouTube video by Center for Connected and Automated Transportation

010

Cathy Wu @cathywu.bsky.social · 14/05/2025

I can't wait for AI to take one of my seven jobs.

1202

Cathy Wu @cathywu.bsky.social · 12/05/2025

Anyone have a favorite blog or newsletter focusing on RL? Something not super focused on LLMs would be wonderful. 🤖🧠

250

Cathy Wu @cathywu.bsky.social · 11/05/2025

Quick notes from this nice CCAT panel on funding smart infrastructure. I used to think this stuff was boring, but now I recognize that nothing can happen without money. In short: We have smart phones and smart cars, why don't we have smart roads? 👇 www.youtube.com/watch?v=nEtw...

youtube.com

Global Smart Infrastructure Funding and Financing | Panel | 2023 CCAT Symposium

YouTube video by Center for Connected and Automated Transportation

120

Cathy Wu @cathywu.bsky.social · 11/05/2025

I'm continuously impressed with the clarity, quality, and depth of the CCAT seminars from the University of Michigan www.youtube.com/@UMichCCAT

010

Reposted by Cathy Wu

Leshem (Legend) Choshen @EMNLP @lchoshen.bsky.social · 11/05/2025

Did you remember all the things to do before sharing a figure? Remove "_" from the labels save as pdf ... A lot of deeper tips to writing are in the shared document, but somehow this practical list was always the most popular. Good luck in #neurips docs.google.com/document/d/1... 🧠🤖📈 #LLM #AI

3362

Reposted by Cathy Wu

Ben Edelman @benedelman.bsky.social · 08/05/2025

What if there were a workshop dedicated to *small-scale*, *reproducible* experiments? What if this were at ICML 2025? What if your submission (due May 22nd) could literally be a Jupyter notebook?? Pretty excited this is happening. Spread the word! sites.google.com/view/moss202...

262

Reposted by Cathy Wu

Adam Tranter @adamtranter.bsky.social · 09/05/2025

Speed cameras save lives but many local authorities can’t afford to operate them because 100% of fines go straight to the Treasury. Local authorities should at least be able to retain enough of the revenue to cover the overheads of running schemes. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

bbc.co.uk

West Midlands' 'most successful' road safety scheme in £1.8m loss

Average speed cameras have cut crashes by more than 30%, councillors hear, but come at a cost.

1312847

Reposted by Cathy Wu

Brent Toderian @brenttoderian.bsky.social · 10/05/2025

A typical European car is parked 92% of the time. It spends 1/5th of its driving time looking for parking. Its 5 seats only move 1.5 people. 86% of its fuel never reaches the wheels, and most of the energy that does, moves the car, not the people. Sound efficient? HT @ellenmacarthurfdn.bsky.social

Graphic full of data illustrating the inefficiencies of cars

33750311