I received my Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from MIT. My advisor is Prof. Mohammad Alizadeh in Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory.

I got my B.S. from Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, majored in Math and Computer Science, minored in Physics.


Publications  ( show selected / show all by date / Google Scholar)


  • Network System Optimization with Reinforcement Learning

    • H. Mao
    PhD Thesis 2020
    [Thesis] [Slides]



  • Park: An Open Platform for Learning Augmented Computer Systems

    • H. Mao, P. Negi, A. Narayan, H. Wang, J. Yang, H. Wang, R. Marcus, R. Addanki, M. Khani, S. He, V. Nathan, F. Cangialosi, S. Venkatakrishnan, W.-H. Weng, S. Han, T. Kraska, M. Alizadeh
    NeurIPS 2019
    [Paper] [Code] [Poster] [Slides]
    ICML Workshop Best Paper Award


  • Learning Scheduling Algorithms for Data Processing Clusters

    • H. Mao, M. Schwarzkopf, S. Venkatakrishnan, Z. Meng, M. Alizadeh
    SIGCOMM 2019
    [Paper] [Website] [Code] [Slides] [Talk]



  • Variance Reduction for Reinforcement Learning in Input-Driven Environments

    • H. Mao, S. Venkatakrishnan, M. Schwarzkopf, M. Alizadeh
    ICLR 2019
    [Paper] [Website] [Code] [Demo] [Poster]



  • Real-world Video Adaptation with Reinforcement Learning

    • H. Mao, S. Chen, D. Dimmery, S. Singh, D. Blaisdell, Y. Tian, M. Alizadeh, E. Bakshy
    ICML workshop 2019
    [Paper] [Poster]



  • Neural Adaptive Video Streaming with Pensieve

    • H. Mao, R. Netravali, M. Alizadeh
    ACM SIGCOMM 2017
    [Paper] [Website] [Code] [Slides] [Talk] [Video]



  • Resource Management with Deep Reinforcement Learning

    • H. Mao, M. Alizadeh, I. Menache, S. Kandula
    ACM HotNets 2016
    [Paper] [Code] [Slides] [Poster]



  • Smart Homes that Monitor Breathing and Heart Rate

    • F. Adib, H. Mao, Z. Kabelac, D. Katabi, R. Miller
    ACM CHI 2015
    [Paper] [Website] [Video] [Slides]
    Honorable Mention Award



    Honors & Awards


  • ACM SIGMOD Best Paper Award, 2021
  • ICML Workshop Best Paper Award, 2019
  • Qualcomm Innovation Fellowship, 2017
  • Andrew (1956) and Erna Viterbi Fellowship, 2015
  • CSAIL Research Highlight Competition First Place, 2015
  • SIGCHI Best of CHI Honorable Mention Award, 2015
  • HKUST Academic Achievement Medal, 2015
  • Hong Kong Government Talent Development Scholarship, 2015
  • Cheng Foundation Scholarship, 2015
  • HKUST Math Epsilon Award, 2015
  • ACM MobiCom Best Demo Award, 2014
  • Mr Armin and Mrs Lillian Kitchell Undergraduate Research Award First Runner-up, 2014
  • Hong Kong Government Reaching Out Award, 2014
  • Paul Ching Wu Chu Scholarship, 2013
  • Paul and May Chu Research Award Finalist, 2013
  • China Merchants Scholarship, 2013
  • Dean’s List Award, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015
  • HKUST School of Science Scholarship, 2011, 2012

    • Teaching


  • 6.829 Computer Networks, Fall 2016

    • News & Media


    MIT News, Communications of the ACM, Tech Xplore, Computer Business Review, Network World and other media outlets covered Decima.


    Forbes, Tech Crunch, Engadget, Daily Mail, Science Daily, MIT News, International Business Times, Electronic 360, Inverse, Digital Journal, FossBytes, and other media outlets covered Pensieve.


    Washington Post, NBC, CNBC, BBC, Business Insider, Huffington Post, International Business Times , Daily Mail, Popular Science, Gizmodo, Popular Mechanics, The Verge, Quartz, and other media outlets covered RF-Capture.


    Digital Trends, Discovery News, Wired, Gizmodo, AMC Tech News, Phys.org, Le Figaro, UPI, Popular Science, New Scientist, NOVA Next|PBS, and other media outlets covered Vital-Radio.