I am an assistant professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering at Polytechnique Montréal (engineering school affiliated with Université de Montréal), and a member of Group for Research in Decision Analysis (GERAD) and Unifying Neuroscience and Artificial Intelligence - Québec (UNIQUE). Before joining Polytechnique Montréal, I was a postdoctoral researcher at McGill University and a research fellow at the Simons Institute at University of California, Berkeley. I received my PhD degree in Electrical Engineering from McGill University in 2019, with specialization in systems and control, advised by Peter E. Caines.

My research aims to discover fundamental properties of dynamics and control of systems that involve large populations of network-coupled decision makers, and achieve intelligent decision-making for such systems.

Broadly, my research interests include control, game and learning theories for large networks, and their applications in social networks, epidemic networks, smart renewable energy grids and neuronal systems.

Prospective Students

• We are looking for motivated students with curiosity and a strong mathematical background and/or coding skills to work on modelling, control, optimization or learning of large networks of dynamical systems with uncertainties. If you are interested in working with me, please write to me with your CV, transcripts and your research interests. My apologies for not being able to reply to all your inquiries.
• Postdocs, PhD and master students: We have openings for Winter 2027 and Summer 2027.
• Also, feel free to reach out if you are interested in working with me via any of the following scholarship opportunities:
  • Postdocs, PhD and master students: Banting Postdoctoral Fellowship, NSERC Postdoctoral Fellowship, Mitacs Elevate, FRQNT Postdoctoral Scholarship, IVADO Postdoctoral Scholarship, UNIQUE Scholarship, GERAD Fellowship, FRQNT PhD Scholarship, Merit Scholarship Program for Foreign Students (PBEEE)
  • Undergraduate students: Mitacs Globalink Research Internships, NSERC Undergraduate Student Research Awards (USRA)

Recent News

• 09/2026Congratulations to Nour Al Dandachly on the defense of her master’s thesis on price-coordinated mean field games! The work is motivated by the problem of decentralized yet coordinated battery charging and will be presented IEEE Conference on Decision and Control (CDC 2026). [PDF]
• 08/2026Our work on data-driven network mean field games using ideas from integral reinforcement learning is presented by Jean Zhu at International Symposium on Mathematical Theory of Networks and Systems (MTNS 2026). [PDF]
• 05/2026Our work on constrained stochastic LQ control motivated by energy demand response is presented by Leo Seugnet at American Control Conference (ACC 2026). [PDF] [Slides]
• 12/2025 Three works presented at IEEE Conference on Decision and Control (CDC 2025): Control of TransNNs, Graphon MFG with common noise, Network control with directed graphs. [W1] [W2] [W3]
• 08/2025 Our new course on Network Models, Systems, and Games (ELE6953KE) will be offered again in Fall 2025, open to both undergraduate and graduate students. It is designed for those interested in gaining exposure to research topics in network systems and games.
• 05/2025 I would like to thank Fonds de recherche du Québec - Nature et technologie (FRQNT) for supporting our research program on "Data-Enabled Mean Field Games for Demand Response in Energy Systems".
• 07/2024 Our course on Network Models, Systems and Games (ELE6953KE) will be available to both undergraduate and graduate students in Fall 2024. This course is suitable for students who want to have some exposure to research topics in network systems and games.
• 06/2024 Our NetSci2024 symposium on "Controlling Complex Networks: When Control Theory Meets Network Science", co-organized by Yang-Yu Liu, Aming Li, Erfan Nozari, Peter Caines and myself, was held in Quebec City, Canada, on June 18, 2024.
• 04/2024 I would like to thank NSERC (Canada) for supporting our research program on "Large Networks of Dynamic Populations with Stochasticity: Modelling, Control and Learning" through the NSERC Discovery Grant.
• 12/2023 I gave a talk on LQG Graphon Mean Field Games at the Simons Institute at UC Berkeley.
• 06/2023 I will join the Electrical Engineering Department at Polytechnique Montréal (University of Montreal) as an assistant professor in September 2023.
• 05/2023 Our journal paper on LQG Graphon Mean Field Games has been accepted for publication in IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control.
• 01/2023 I gave an invited talk (remotely) in the Department of Advanced Manufacturing and Robotics in the College of Engineering at Peking University.
• 12/2022 I gave two talks at the IEEE Conference on Decision and Control (CDC) in Cancún: one on fixed-point centrality and the other on graphon mean field games. Slides: [Talk1] [Talk2].
• 11/2022 Two talks on Transmission Neural Networks: one talk in the Department of Industrial Engineering & Operations Research at UC Berkeley, and one talk at the 8th Annual Industry Day at the Simons Institute, UC Berkeley.
• 10/2022 I gave a talk on Transmission Neural Networks at the Workshop on Epidemics and Information Diffusion at the Simons Institute, UC Berkeley [Video] [Slides].
• 08/2022 Check out our work on Transmission Neural Networks: From Virus Spread Models to Neural Networks. A short presentation at the Simons Institute is now available online [Video].
• 07/2022 Two papers are accepted by CDC 2022: one on fixed-point centrality and the other on infinite horizon LQG graphon mean field games. See [W1] [W2].
• 02/2022 I received the Simons-Berkeley Research Fellowship.
• 10/2021 Recordings of our Workshop on Mean Field Games on Networks are now available online: [MFGNetRecording].
• 10/2021 Our work on Optimal control of network-coupled subsystems is about to appear in IEEE Transactions on Control of Network Systems.
• 07/2021 Two papers, one on LQG graphon mean field games and the other on opinion dynamics modeling, are accepted by CDC 2021. See [W1] [W2].
• 02/2021 Our journal paper on Subspace decompositions for graphon LQR is accepted by IEEE Transactions on Control of Network Systems.
• 02/2021 Check out the YouTube Channel for our Virtual Informal Systems Seminar!
• 09/2020 Our journal paper on Linear Quadratic Graphon Field Games is about to appear in Communications in Information and Systems.
• 11/2019 Our journal paper on Graphon Control of Large-Scale Networks of Linear Systems is accepted by IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control.
• 07/2019 Three papers on network control, graphon control, and spectral representations of graphon dynamical systems are accepted by CDC 2019. See [W1] [W2] [W3].
• 05/2018 I received the Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award at McGill University.

Contact

  shuang [dot] gao [at] polymtl [dot] ca
  +1 (514) 340-4711 ext. 7135
  Office M-6023, Lassonde Pavilion, 2700 Chemin de la Tour, Montréal, QC, Canada, H3T 1J4
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