FAIR Lab

The Foundations of Artificial Intelligence Research (FAIR) Lab at Penn State conducts foundational research at the intersection of artificial intelligence, economics, and computation. We design principled solutions for robust and fair decision-making among multiple intelligent agents, from people to autonomous systems, with applications ranging from healthcare resource allocation and refugee placement to recommendation systems and gig economies.

Current members 6

PhD students

Shraddha PathakPhD student

Samarth KhannaPhD student

Duohan ZhangPhD studentCo-advised with Vasant Honavar

Xiyuan WangPhD studentCo-advised with Mehrdad Mahdavi

Undergraduate honors students

Leona PierceBSc honors student

Anna KasehagenBSc honors student

Joining the lab

I direct the Foundations of Artificial Intelligence Research (FAIR) Lab and am always looking for exceptional students. Please read this before emailing.

Student recognition 7

2025
Best AI Thesis AwardAmrit Puhan · Penn State, university-wide
2025
Best Poster Presentation AwardSamarth Khanna · Penn State, university-wide
2020
Outstanding Undergraduate Scholar AwardFatima Umar · Rochester Institute of Technology
2019
Outstanding Undergraduate Researcher Award, honorable mentionAndrew Searns · Computing Research Association (CRA)
2018
Best MS Capstone Award and Best Poster PresentationAmeya Shringi · Rochester Institute of Technology
2017
Best Poster PresentationSaurabh Chatterjee · Rochester Institute of Technology

Alumni 36

Where they wentBeijing Normal University · IIT Jodhpur · Indian Statistical Institute · University of Oxford · Université Paris-Dauphine-PSL · Carnegie Mellon University · UNSW · Johns Hopkins APL · Amazon · Meta · Microsoft · Peraton · Brown University

Postdoctoral fellows

Yu ZhouPostdoctoral fellow, 2024–2025Now: Assistant Professor, Beijing Normal University
Sanjukta RoyPostdoctoral fellow, 2022–2024Now: Assistant Professor, Indian Statistical Institute
Tomasz WąsPostdoctoral fellow, 2022–2023Now: University of Oxford

Graduate students

Aghaheybat MammadovPhD, 2021–2025Co-advised with Nima HaghpanahNow: Keystone AI
Angelina BrilliantovaPhD student, 2019–2021, and earlier visiting studentNow: PhD student, RIT
Amrit PuhanMSc thesis, 2022–2024Best MSc AI Thesis, Penn StateNow: Amazon
Authisha SelvamMSc student, IISER PuneCo-advised with Siddharth BarmanNow: PhD student, Université Paris-Dauphine-PSL
Ronak SinghMSc/BSc honors studentNow: Peraton
Andrew SearnsBS/MS thesis, 2018–2021CRA Outstanding Undergraduate Researcher, honorable mentionNow: Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory
Yeting BaoMSc thesis, 2019–2021Now: Agfa Healthcare
Ritaban BhattacharyaMSc thesis, 2018–2020Now: Amazon
Sanjay VarmaMSc thesis, 2018–2019Co-advised with Ivona BezákováNow: ADP
Ameya ShringiMS capstone, 2018Best MS Capstone Award; Best Poster PresentationNow: R&D Engineer, Kitware
Dharmendra HinguMS capstone, 2018Now: Microsoft
Saurabh ChatterjeeMS capstone, 2017Best Poster PresentationNow: ImpactVision

Undergraduate students

Vivaan SinghBSc honors studentNow: Researcher, Carnegie Mellon University
Noah TobiasBSc honors student
Kanika SharmaBSc honors thesis, 2021–2022Now: Meta
Fatima UmarBSc student, 2019–2022Outstanding Undergraduate Scholar Award, RIT
Yubo JingBSc studentNow: MSc student, Brown University
James FerrisBSc, 2017–2019Now: Microsoft
Laurel PerweilerBSc, 2017–2019Now: MSc, University of Denver
Theodora BendlinBSc student, 2017–2018Now: Intuit

Visiting scholars

Atasi PandaVisiting scholar, 2025–2026
Šimon SchierreichFulbright PhD scholar, 2024–2025
Aditi SethiaVisiting PhD scholar, 2024–2025Now: Assistant Professor, IIT Jodhpur
Grzegorz LisowskiVisiting postdoctoral scholar, 2024Now: AGH University
Shivika NarangVisiting PhD scholar, 2023–2024Now: Postdoctoral Fellow, UNSW
Irfan TekdirVisiting scholar, 2022–2024
Anton PletenevVisiting student, 2018–2019Now: PhD student, University of Rochester