Simon S. Du

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Institute for Advanced Study ∙ Carnegie Mellon University ∙ University of Washington

Research Intern at facebook 2017, Research Intern at Microsoft 2016, Consulting Intern at Accenture 2015, Research Assistant at UC Berkeley from 2013-2014, Software Engineering Intern at Google 2014, Research Assistant at Bay Area Intellectual Property Group 2013, Consulting Intern at CCID Consulting Co. 2012, PhD in Machine Learning Department at Carnegie Mellon University 2015-2020

Featured Co-authors

Michael I. Jordan
192 publications
Xi Chen
160 publications
Ruslan Salakhutdinov
137 publications
Yi Zhang
115 publications
Li Fei-Fei
105 publications
Barnabas Poczos
97 publications
Joshua B. Tenenbaum
93 publications
Liwei Wang
85 publications
Bo Liu
80 publications
Quanquan Gu
76 publications
Aarti Singh
61 publications

Randomized Exploration is Near-Optimal for Tabular MDP

We study exploration using randomized value functions in Thompson Sampli...
02/19/2021 ∙ by Zhihan Xiong, et al. ∙ 0 ∙ share

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Provably Efficient Policy Gradient Methods for Two-Player Zero-Sum Markov Games

Policy gradient methods are widely used in solving two-player zero-sum g...
02/17/2021 ∙ by Yulai Zhao, et al. ∙ 11 ∙ share

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Improved Corruption Robust Algorithms for Episodic Reinforcement Learning

We study episodic reinforcement learning under unknown adversarial corru...
02/13/2021 ∙ by Yifang Chen, et al. ∙ 0 ∙ share

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Fine-Grained Gap-Dependent Bounds for Tabular MDPs via Adaptive Multi-Step Bootstrap

This paper presents a new model-free algorithm for episodic finite-horiz...
02/09/2021 ∙ by Haike Xu, et al. ∙ 0 ∙ share

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Variance-Aware Confidence Set: Variance-Dependent Bound for Linear Bandits and Horizon-Free Bound for Linear Mixture MDP

We show how to construct variance-aware confidence sets for linear bandi...
01/29/2021 ∙ by Zihan Zhang, et al. ∙ 0 ∙ share

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A Provably Efficient Algorithm for Linear Markov Decision Process with Low Switching Cost

Many real-world applications, such as those in medical domains, recommen...
01/02/2021 ∙ by Minbo Gao, et al. ∙ 0 ∙ share

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Nearly Minimax Optimal Reward-free Reinforcement Learning

We study the reward-free reinforcement learning framework, which is part...
10/12/2020 ∙ by Zihan Zhang, et al. ∙ 0 ∙ share

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Is Reinforcement Learning More Difficult Than Bandits? A Near-optimal Algorithm Escaping the Curse of Horizon

Episodic reinforcement learning and contextual bandits are two widely st...
09/28/2020 ∙ by Zihan Zhang, et al. ∙ 0 ∙ share

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How Neural Networks Extrapolate: From Feedforward to Graph Neural Networks

We study how neural networks trained by gradient descent extrapolate, i....
09/24/2020 ∙ by Keyulu Xu, et al. ∙ 68 ∙ share

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On Reward-Free Reinforcement Learning with Linear Function Approximation

Reward-free reinforcement learning (RL) is a framework which is suitable...
06/19/2020 ∙ by Ruosong Wang, et al. ∙ 0 ∙ share

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Q-learning with Logarithmic Regret

This paper presents the first non-asymptotic result showing that a model...
06/16/2020 ∙ by Kunhe Yang, et al. ∙ 0 ∙ share

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When is Particle Filtering Efficient for POMDP Sequential Planning?

Particle filtering is a popular method for inferring latent states in st...
06/10/2020 ∙ by Simon S. Du, et al. ∙ 1 ∙ share

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Is Long Horizon Reinforcement Learning More Difficult Than Short Horizon Reinforcement Learning?

Learning to plan for long horizons is a central challenge in episodic re...
05/01/2020 ∙ by Ruosong Wang, et al. ∙ 7 ∙ share

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Provably Efficient Exploration for RL with Unsupervised Learning

We study how to use unsupervised learning for efficient exploration in r...
03/15/2020 ∙ by Fei Feng, et al. ∙ 2 ∙ share

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Provable Representation Learning for Imitation Learning via Bi-level Optimization

A common strategy in modern learning systems is to learn a representatio...
02/24/2020 ∙ by Sanjeev Arora, et al. ∙ 6 ∙ share

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Few-Shot Learning via Learning the Representation, Provably

This paper studies few-shot learning via representation learning, where ...
02/21/2020 ∙ by Simon S. Du, et al. ∙ 46 ∙ share

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Agnostic Q-learning with Function Approximation in Deterministic Systems: Tight Bounds on Approximation Error and Sample Complexity

The current paper studies the problem of agnostic Q-learning with functi...
02/17/2020 ∙ by Simon S. Du, et al. ∙ 0 ∙ share

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Over-parameterized Adversarial Training: An Analysis Overcoming the Curse of Dimensionality

Adversarial training is a popular method to give neural nets robustness ...
02/16/2020 ∙ by Yi Zhang, et al. ∙ 11 ∙ share

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Optimism in Reinforcement Learning with Generalized Linear Function Approximation

We design a new provably efficient algorithm for episodic reinforcement ...
12/09/2019 ∙ by Yining Wang, et al. ∙ 0 ∙ share

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Enhanced Convolutional Neural Tangent Kernels

Recent research shows that for training with ℓ_2 loss, convolutional neu...
11/03/2019 ∙ by Zhiyuan Li, et al. ∙ 17 ∙ share

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Continuous Control with Contexts, Provably

A fundamental challenge in artificial intelligence is to build an agent ...
10/30/2019 ∙ by Simon S. Du, et al. ∙ 0 ∙ share

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Is a Good Representation Sufficient for Sample Efficient Reinforcement Learning?

Modern deep learning methods provide an effective means to learn good re...
10/07/2019 ∙ by Simon S. Du, et al. ∙ 15 ∙ share

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Harnessing the Power of Infinitely Wide Deep Nets on Small-data Tasks

Recent research shows that the following two models are equivalent: (a) ...
10/03/2019 ∙ by Sanjeev Arora, et al. ∙ 16 ∙ share

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Dual Sequential Monte Carlo: Tunneling Filtering and Planning in Continuous POMDPs

We present the DualSMC network that solves continuous POMDPs by learning...
09/28/2019 ∙ by Yunbo Wang, et al. ∙ 15 ∙ share

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Towards Understanding the Importance of Shortcut Connections in Residual Networks

Residual Network (ResNet) is undoubtedly a milestone in deep learning. R...
09/10/2019 ∙ by Tianyi Liu, et al. ∙ 2 ∙ share

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Provably Efficient Q-learning with Function Approximation via Distribution Shift Error Checking Oracle

Q-learning with function approximation is one of the most popular method...
06/14/2019 ∙ by Simon S. Du, et al. ∙ 0 ∙ share

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What Can Neural Networks Reason About?

Neural networks have successfully been applied to solving reasoning task...
05/30/2019 ∙ by Keyulu Xu, et al. ∙ 0 ∙ share

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Graph Neural Tangent Kernel: Fusing Graph Neural Networks with Graph Kernels

While graph kernels (GKs) are easy to train and enjoy provable theoretic...
05/30/2019 ∙ by Simon S. Du, et al. ∙ 4 ∙ share

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Hitting Time of Stochastic Gradient Langevin Dynamics to Stationary Points: A Direct Analysis

Stochastic gradient Langevin dynamics (SGLD) is a fundamental algorithm ...
04/30/2019 ∙ by Xi Chen, et al. ∙ 0 ∙ share

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On Exact Computation with an Infinitely Wide Neural Net

How well does a classic deep net architecture like AlexNet or VGG19 clas...
04/26/2019 ∙ by Sanjeev Arora, et al. ∙ 0 ∙ share

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Global Convergence of Adaptive Gradient Methods for An Over-parameterized Neural Network

Adaptive gradient methods like AdaGrad are widely used in optimizing neu...
02/19/2019 ∙ by Xiaoxia Wu, et al. ∙ 6 ∙ share

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Acceleration via Symplectic Discretization of High-Resolution Differential Equations

We study first-order optimization methods obtained by discretizing ordin...
02/11/2019 ∙ by Bin Shi, et al. ∙ 0 ∙ share

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Provably efficient RL with Rich Observations via Latent State Decoding

We study the exploration problem in episodic MDPs with rich observations...
01/25/2019 ∙ by Simon S. Du, et al. ∙ 0 ∙ share

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Fine-Grained Analysis of Optimization and Generalization for Overparameterized Two-Layer Neural Networks

Recent works have cast some light on the mystery of why deep nets fit an...
01/24/2019 ∙ by Sanjeev Arora, et al. ∙ 16 ∙ share

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Width Provably Matters in Optimization for Deep Linear Neural Networks

We prove that for an L-layer fully-connected linear neural network, if t...
01/24/2019 ∙ by Simon S. Du, et al. ∙ 0 ∙ share

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Gradient Descent Finds Global Minima of Deep Neural Networks

Gradient descent finds a global minimum in training deep neural networks...
11/09/2018 ∙ by Simon S. Du, et al. ∙ 20 ∙ share

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Understanding the Acceleration Phenomenon via High-Resolution Differential Equations

Gradient-based optimization algorithms can be studied from the perspecti...
10/21/2018 ∙ by Bin Shi, et al. ∙ 0 ∙ share

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Gradient Descent Provably Optimizes Over-parameterized Neural Networks

One of the mystery in the success of neural networks is randomly initial...
10/04/2018 ∙ by Simon S. Du, et al. ∙ 30 ∙ share

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Algorithmic Regularization in Learning Deep Homogeneous Models: Layers are Automatically Balanced

We study the implicit regularization imposed by gradient descent for lea...
06/04/2018 ∙ by Simon S. Du, et al. ∙ 0 ∙ share

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Robust Nonparametric Regression under Huber's ε-contamination Model

We consider the non-parametric regression problem under Huber's ϵ-contam...
05/26/2018 ∙ by Simon S. Du, et al. ∙ 0 ∙ share

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How Many Samples are Needed to Learn a Convolutional Neural Network?

A widespread folklore for explaining the success of convolutional neural...
05/21/2018 ∙ by Simon S. Du, et al. ∙ 0 ∙ share

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Improved Learning of One-hidden-layer Convolutional Neural Networks with Overlaps

We propose a new algorithm to learn a one-hidden-layer convolutional neu...
05/20/2018 ∙ by Simon S. Du, et al. ∙ 0 ∙ share

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Fast and Sample Efficient Inductive Matrix Completion via Multi-Phase Procrustes Flow

We revisit the inductive matrix completion problem that aims to recover ...
03/03/2018 ∙ by Xiao Zhang, et al. ∙ 0 ∙ share

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On the Power of Over-parametrization in Neural Networks with Quadratic Activation

We provide new theoretical insights on why over-parametrization is effec...
03/03/2018 ∙ by Simon S. Du, et al. ∙ 0 ∙ share

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Near-Linear Time Local Polynomial Nonparametric Estimation

Local polynomial regression (Fan & Gijbels, 1996) is an important class ...
02/26/2018 ∙ by Yining Wang, et al. ∙ 0 ∙ share

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Linear Convergence of the Primal-Dual Gradient Method for Convex-Concave Saddle Point Problems without Strong Convexity

We consider the convex-concave saddle point problem _x_y f(x)+y^ A x-g(y...
02/05/2018 ∙ by Simon S. Du, et al. ∙ 0 ∙ share

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Gradient Descent Learns One-hidden-layer CNN: Don't be Afraid of Spurious Local Minima

We consider the problem of learning a one-hidden-layer neural network wi...
12/03/2017 ∙ by Simon S. Du, et al. ∙ 0 ∙ share

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When is a Convolutional Filter Easy To Learn?

We analyze the convergence of (stochastic) gradient descent algorithm fo...
09/18/2017 ∙ by Simon S. Du, et al. ∙ 0 ∙ share

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Gradient Descent Can Take Exponential Time to Escape Saddle Points

Although gradient descent (GD) almost always escapes saddle points asymp...
05/29/2017 ∙ by Simon S. Du, et al. ∙ 0 ∙ share

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Stochastic Variance Reduction Methods for Policy Evaluation

Policy evaluation is a crucial step in many reinforcement-learning proce...
02/25/2017 ∙ by Simon S. Du, et al. ∙ 0 ∙ share

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