Openings

We welcome research assistants, interns, visiting students and scholars all year round. Since my school email is flooded with all kinds of messages, please send your inquiry to taoli.cityuhk@gmail.com.

2026 Fall PhD Openings

I am looking for students joining my research group starting from 2026 Fall. All Ph.D. positions are fully funded. Exceptionally qualified Ph.D. applicants will be encouraged to apply for the Hong Kong PhD Fellowship Scheme (HKPFS). Please contact me if you want to give a try.

:star2: In addition to HKPFS, CityU now offers a special PhD application track for applicants with a bachelor’s degree from C9 League (THU, PKU, SJTU, FDU, ZJU, NJU, USTC, XJTU, HIT), UCAS, and QS/THE Top 20 universities, featuring an expedited offer process and a much higher scholarship. Applicants interested in this opportunity should contact me as soon as possible, since the quota is very limited.

Applicants who possess the following skills and experience are strongly encouraged to apply.

  • stong math backgrounds in reinforcement leanring (e.g., MDP/POMDP, dynamic programming, policy optimization, bandit), control & optimization (e.g., optimal control, MPC, nonconvex/stochastic/bi-level optimization) and game theory (e.g., Markov game, equilibrium computation, game-theoretic leanring).
  • extensive programming experience in AI, cybersecurity, and transportation domains, including but limited to reinforcement learning algorithms, foundation models, cyber environment simulation, vehicular and traffic simulation.

Based on the applicants’ backgrounds and research interests, I will recommend one of the following research thrusts as the applicants’ research topic.

  • Theoretical Foundations of Agentic AI
  • LLM Agent for Autonomous Cybersecurity
  • World Models for Smart City

If you are interested, please fill this form, and I will contact you soon. If you have any questions, contact me at taoli.cityuhk@gmail.com.

I take Ph.D. students mainly from the Department of Systems Engineering and sometimes from the Department of Data Science. Please check out the addimission requirements for Ph.D. in Systems Engineering and Data Science.