Yuko Kuroki (黒木 祐子 in Japanese) [CV]
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Research Scientist
CENTAI Institute (Center for Artificial Intelligence), Turin, Italy.
Email: yuko.kuroki -at- centai.eu
I will be joining the University of Massachusetts Boston at Department of Mathematics as a Tenure-Track Assistant Professor starting in Spring 2026. I look forward to seeing you in Boston!
I am a Research Scientist at CENTAI (Center for Artificial Intelligence) Institute, a newly established research center in Turin, Italy. Earlier I was a Research Associate in the Department of Computer Science, The University of Tokyo, Japan. I was also a Visiting Scientist at RIKEN Center for Advanced Intelligence Project (AIP), Imperfect Information Learning Team. My research includes theory of optimization, machine learning, and data mining, especially related to graph problems. I received Ph.D. (March, 2021) from The University of Tokyo under the supervision of Prof. Masashi Sugiyama with the Dean's Award for Outstanding Achievement, Graduate School of Information Science and Technology.
Recent News
October 2025: I will visit Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT), Genova, Italy!
September 2025: I will be attending CIBB 2025 (Conference on Computational Intelligence Methods for Bioinformatics and Biostatistics) at Politecnico di Milano, Italy.
October 2025: I will be attending the Symposium on Mathematical Foundations of Trustworthy Learning, at the Monte Verità Congress Center, Switzerland.
November, 2025: I will be attending IBIS 2025 (The 28th Information-Based Induction Sciences Workshop), Okinawa, Japan.
November 2025: I am co-organizing a Workshop on Online Learning and Optimization 2025 at RIKEN AIP, Tokyo, Japan.
April 2025: Our paper "Minimizing Polarization and Disagreement in the Friedkin–Johnsen Model with Unknown Innate Opinions" has been accepted in IJCAI2025!
February 2025: I was promoted to Research Scientist!
December 2024: I will present our paper "Query-Efficient Correlation Clustering with Noisy Oracle" joint work with Atsushi Miyauchi, Francesco Bonchi, and Wei Chen in NeurIPS2024!
October -November 2024: I am very fortunate to visit Prof. Nicolò Cesa-Bianchi's research group at the University of Milan!
September 2024: I will give a talk about our AISTATS2024 paper at "Top Conference Session" in FIT2024 held in Japan [slide]
July 2024: Our paper "Dynamic Structure Estimation from Bandit Feedback using Nonvanishing Exponential Sums" has been accepted in Transactions on Machine Learning Research!
February 2024: I was fortunate to visit Prof. Nicolò Cesa-Bianchi's research group at the University of Milan, a truly delightful experience!
February 2024: Our paper "A constant-ratio approximation algorithm for a class of hub-and-spoke network design problems and metric labeling problems: star metric case" joint work with Tomomi Matsui has been published in Discrete Applied Mathematics!
January 20, 2024: Our paper "Best-of-Both-Worlds Algorithms for Linear Contextual Bandits" joint work with Alberto Rumi, Taira Tsuchiya, Fabio Vitale, & Nicolò Cesa-Bianchi has been accepted in AISTATS2024 (Oral) !
Previous News
December 2023: Visited Prof. Junya Honda and Prof. Hidetoshi Shimodaira group at Kyoto University and gaved a talk!
August 13, 2023: Our invited review article "Combinatorial Pure Exploration with Full-bandit Feedback and Beyond: Solving Combinatorial Optimization under Uncertainty with Limited Observation" has been accepted in The Fields Institute Communications Series on Data Science and Optimization!
February 2, 2023: I moved to CENTAI (Center for Artificial Intelligence) Institute, a newly established research center in Turin, Italy, as a postdoctoral researcher!
January 20, 2023: Our paper "Collaborative Pure Exploration in Kernel Bandit" has been accepted in ICLR2023!
Research Interests
Statistical Machine Learning
-Multi-armed bandits, Weakly supervised learning, Learning theory for online environments.
Combinatorial Optimization
-Approximation algorithms
Graph Mining
-Dense subgraph discovery, Clustering problem, Opinion optimization
Awards
Inoue Research Award for Young Scientists [link (Japanese)], Dec. 2021
Dean's Award for Outstanding Achievement, Graduate School of Information Science and Technology, The University of Tokyo, March 2021.
Excellent Presentation Award Finalist 2020 Workshop on Information-Based Induction Sciences (IBIS2020), November 2020.
Microsoft Research Asia D-CORE (2020) Award, Dec. 25, 2019
The Student Best Presentation Award, The 22nd Information-based Induction Sciences (IBIS 2019), November 2019.
The 36th Student Thesis Award, The Operations Research Society of Japan, Sep. 2018, [abstract] .
Best Poster Presentation Award, Network Science Seminar, August 2017.
Presentation Award, Workshop on Optimization: Foundations and Frontiers, The Operations Research Society of Japan, May 2017
Presentation Award, Workshop on Optimization: Foundations and Frontiers, The Operations Research Society of Japan, May 2016
Educations
Ph.D. , March 2021：Department of Computer Science, Graduate School of Information Science and Technology, University of Tokyo （Supervisor: Prof. Masashi Sugiyama ）
Doctoral Thesis: A Study on Stochastic Combinatorial Bandit Problems with Limited Observation [link]
Master of Engineering, March 2018：School of Engineering, Department of Industrial Engineering and Economics, Tokyo Institute of Technology (Supervisor: Prof. Tomomi Matsui )
Bachelor of Engineering, March 2016：Undergraduate School of Engineering, Department of Industrial Engineering and Economics, Tokyo Institute of Technology (Supervisor: Prof. Tomomi Matsui )
Research Grants/Projects
Oct. 2024 - Mar.2028: Japan Science and Technology Agency, PRESTO Program, “Research Innovation through Autonomous-Driven Research Systems” (Research Supervisor: Prof. Ichiro Takeuchi) [link]
Research Title: Dynamic Environment Analysis and Its Applications Using Sequential Learning Theory and Graph Mining Techniques
April 2021 -- Jan. 2023. MSRA Collaborative Research 2021, Microsoft Research Asia,
Title: Towards Optimal Combinatorial Online Learning under Uncertainty
Collaborator: Prof. Wei Chen
2020/11~2021/12: Japan Science and Technology Agency Strategic Basic Research Programs ACT-X (Research Supervisor: Prof. Ken-ichi Kawarabayashi) [link]
Title: "Learning from limited information and design of mathematical optimization algorithms"
2019/12~2020/12: MSRA Collaborative Research Program (D-CORE 2020)
Title: Machine Learning with Blurred Supervision: Theory and Algorithm from Offline to Online
Collaborator: Prof. Wei Chen (MSRA Theory)
2018/04~ 2021/03: Grant-in-Aid for JSPS Research Fellow (DC1) [link]
Title: Multi-objective optimization on networks and its applications to machine learning
2020/04~2021/03: UTokyo Toyota-Dwango Scholarship
2018/08~2019/03: AIP Challenge Program, JST
Work Experience
Research Associate, 2021/04/01~2023/01/31, The University of Tokyo, Department of Computer Science, Graduate School of Information Science and Technology. Also affiliated with the Department of Information Science, Faculty of Science.
Visiting Scientist, 2021/05/01~2023/01/31, RIKEN Center for Advanced Intelligence Project (AIP), Imperfect Information Learning Team
Research Fellow (DC1), 2018/04/01~2021/03/31, The Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, Tokyo, Japan.
Part-timer, 2019/04/16~2021/03/31, RIKEN Center for Advanced Intelligence Project (AIP), Imperfect Information Learning Team
Trainee, 2018/07~2019/03, RIKEN Center for Advanced Intelligence Project (AIP), Imperfect Information Learning Team
Research Assistant, 2016/05~2018/03 JST, ERATO, Kawarabayashi Large Graph Project Global Research Center for Big Data Mathematics, National Institute of Informatics, Japan
Teaching
The University of Tokyo
2022 A1A2 (Undergraduate B3): Computational complexity theory (Information Science Exercise II, Department of Information Science, Faculty of Science)
2022 S1S2 (Undergraduate B3): Discrete mathematics (Information Science Exercise I, Department of Information Science, Faculty of Science)
2021 A1A2 (Undergraduate B3): Computational complexity theory (Information Science Exercise II, Department of Information Science, Faculty of Science)
2021 S1S2 (Undergraduate B3): Discrete mathematics (Information Science Exercise I, Department of Information Science, Faculty of Science)
Guest lecture
2022 S1S2 (Graduate School): Advanced Algorithms (Instructors: Prof. Hiroshi Imai and Prof. Tetsuro Shibuya), 10th session, Graduate School of Information Science and Technology
2022 A1A2 (Undergraduate B3): Computational Complexity Theory (Instructor: Prof. Hiroshi Imai), 7th session, Graduate School of Information Science and Technology
UTokyo Extension Data Science School
2022 (Workers): Optimization (in Japanese)
2021 (Workers): Introduction to Statistical Analysis (in Japanese)
Professional Activity
Committee
Program Committee, 28th Information-based Induction Sciences Workshop (IBIS2025)
Program Committee, The 44-th Machine Learning Summer School (MLSS2024)
Special Committee, IBIS (Information-based Induction Sciences), June 09, 2022 - Present
Program Committee, 25th Information-based Induction Sciences Workshop (IBIS2022)
Organizing Committee, NeurIPS Meetup Japan 2020
Reviewer ICML (2021~), NeurIPS (2021~), AISTATS (2024~), ICLR (2021, 2023), TMLR (2022~), KDD (2024~)
Subreviewer FOCS (2022)
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