Hi! I’m Kihyun, a 5th-year PhD student in MIT EECS. My research focuses on developing reliable AI systems using data-driven approaches, with an emphasis on reinforcement learning (reward learning, imitation learning), AI alignment (preference-based RL, LLM fine-tuning), control (stochastic optimal control, distributionally robust control), and game theory (social choice theory, mechanism design).

I am affiliated with MIT LIDS and am fortunate to be co-advised by Prof. Asuman Ozdaglar and Prof. Pablo Parrilo. Before joining MIT, I worked with Prof. Insoon Yang at Seoul National University, where I had the wonderful opportunity to deepen my theoretical background.

My research interests span the theoretical foundations of machine learning and optimization. Feel free to reach out if you share similar interests!

Recent News

• Jun. 2025: Started a ML research internship at Adobe Research (project: reinforcement learning for LLM agents in a painting environment).
• Oct. 2024: Presented my work on offline inverse RL and RLHF at an invited session at the 2024 INFORMS Annual Meeting.
• Sep. 2024: Began TA for the graduate-level RL course 6.7920 Reinforcement Learning: Foundations and Methods at MIT.
• Jun. 2024: Started a ML research internship with the Advanced ML Lab at LG AI Research.
• May. 2024: Completed my MS degree (Thesis: “Offline Reward Learning from Human Demonstrations and Feedback: A Linear Programming Approach”)