Partner Research Manager and lead of the Microsoft Research Game Intelligence team
Today Nature published Microsoft’s research detailing our WHAM, an AI model that generates video game visuals & controller actions. We are releasing the model weights, sample data, &…
Diffusion models have been used to generate photorealistic images and short videos, compose music, and synthesize speech. In a new paper, Microsoft Researchers explore how they can be…
A key challenge on the path to developing agents that learn complex human-like behavior is the need to quickly and accurately quantify human-likeness. While human assessments of such…
Explore multimodal & small language models, plus advanced benchmarks for AI evaluation. Microsoft researchers are working on breakthroughs in weather prediction, materials design, even a new kind of…
I am a Partner Research Manager at Microsoft Research Cambridge, where I co-lead the People-Centric AI research area. My work focuses on generative AI, interactive media, and game intelligence, combining advances in machine learning with human-computer interaction, design, and social science. With my team we aim to create AI systems that empower people through collaboration, creativity, and play – unlocking new forms of interaction and addressing complex real-world challenges. I am passionate about driving interdisciplinary research that shapes the future of AI experiences across productivity, entertainment, and beyond.
Previously, I led the Game Intelligence team with a focus on machine learning research with a focus on video games, which now forms part of the broader People-Centric AI area.
I am proud to serve the academic research community in my current roles of Board Member (since 2022) and Secretary of the Board (since 2024) of the International Conference on Learning Representations (ICLR (opens in new tab)), and have previously served as Senior Program Chair (ICLR 2021) and General Chair (ICLR 2022).
As part of the Microsoft Research PhD Scholarship program, I have deeply enjoyed co-supervising, and successfully graduating, the following PhD students:
Before joining Microsoft Research, I completed my PhD in Computer Science as part of the former ILPS group at the University of Amsterdam (opens in new tab). I worked with Maarten de Rijke (opens in new tab) and Shimon Whiteson (opens in new tab) on smart search engines that learn directly from their users. For a list of my publications before joining MSR, please see the ILPS (Information and Language Processing Systems) list of publications (opens in new tab), MSR Academic, or dblp (opens in new tab).
To rapidly learn a new task, it is often essential for agents to explore efficiently -- especially when performance matters from the first timestep. One way to learn such behaviour is via meta-learning. Many existing methods however rely on dense…
High sample complexity remains a barrier to the application of reinforcement learning (RL), particularly in multi-agent systems. A large body of work has demonstrated that exploration mechanisms based on the principle of optimism under uncertainty can significantly improve the sample…
In video games, nonplayer characters, bots, and other game agents help bring a digital world and its story to life. They can help make the mission of saving humanity feel urgent, transform every turn of a corner into a gamer’s…
One of the core directions of Project Malmo is to develop AI capable of rich interactions. Whether that means learning new skills to apply to challenging problems, understanding complex environments, or knowing when to enlist the help of humans, reinforcement…
Imagine moving to a new city. You want to get from your new home to your new job. Unfamiliar with the area, you ask your co-workers for the best route, and as far as you can tell ... they’re right!…
When I was asked about my favorite movie in a game with friends after my wedding ceremony, I replied Star Wars. That was about two decades ago, and, yes, it’s still the case. I especially like Return of the Jedi.…
