Jiaoyang Li

I am an assistant professor in the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University. I received my Ph.D. degree in Computer Science at University of Southern California in 2022, advised by Professor Sven Koenig. I received my B.Eng. degree from Department of Automation, School of Information Science and Technology, Tsinghua University in 2017. I am interested in a variety of topics related to Artificial Intelligence and optimization, such as combinatorial algorithms, heuristic search, scheduling and planning for robotics and transportation. My current research focuses on the coordination of large teams of mobile robots.

Check out my research here.
Check out my publications here.
Check out my CV here.

Research Opportunities

I am always looking for self-motivated students at all levels.

If you are a prospective graduate student and interested in working with me, please apply to one of the graduate programs offered by the Robotics Institute. Please contact me after you have been admitted.
If you are a Carnegie Mellon student and interested in working with me, please send me an email with your CV and a short description of your background and interests.
If you are an undergraduate student and looking for summer research opportunities, you are highly encouraged to apply to CMU’s RISS program.

I currently do not have any funding for postdoc positions.

News

[2026/01] Organized the AAAI 2026 Bridge Program on Combining AI and OR/MS for Better Trustworthy Decision Making.
[2026/01] Co-chaired the workshop program at AAAI-26.
[2025/11] Co-chaired the system demonstration track at ICAPS-25.
[2025/11] Gave an invited seminar talk at the CMU Robotics Institute.
[2025/11] Our demo Advancing MAPF towards the Real World: A Scalable Multi-Agent Realistic Testbed (SMART) won the ICAPS 2025 Best System Demonstration Award.
[2025/10] Gave invited talks at the IROS Workshop on Multi-Robot Perception and Navigation Challenges in Logistics and Inspection Tasks, the NRI/FRR Annual Meeting Robot Learning and Planning Workshop, and the Amazon Robotics Research Symposium.
[2025/08] Gave an invited talk on AI for Collaborative Autonomy: Multi-Robot Systems in Manufacturing at the CMU Manufacturing Futures Institute Workshop.
[2025/05] Co-chaired the RSS 2025 Workshop on Large Foundation Model for Interactive Robot Learning.
[2025/04] Received the NSF CAREER Award.
[2025/03] Our paper Deploying Ten Thousand Robots: Scalable Imitation Learning for Lifelong Multi-Agent Path Finding won the ICRA 2025 Best Student Paper Award and the Best Paper Award on Multi-Robot Systems.
[2025/02] Gave invited talks at the University of Macau and Amazon Robotics, and a guest lecture for the University of Virginia course on multi-robot navigation.
[2025/02] Co-chaired the Job Fair at AAAI-25.

[2024.12] Five papers were accepted to AAAI 2025, including works on windowed MAPF with completeness guarantees, multi-agent motion planning for differential-drive robots, temporal plan graph optimization, online guidance graph optimization, and LNS2+RL.
[2024.08] Gave an invited talk on Layout Design for Large-Scale Multi-Robot Coordination at the 7th YinzOR Conference.
[2024.06] Our paper Accelerating Search-Based Planning for Multi-Robot Manipulation by Leveraging Online-Generated Experiences won the best student paper award at ICAPS-24.
[2024.06] Co-chaired the System Demonstration track at ICAPS-24.
[2024.06] Co-chaired the 17th International Symposium on Combinatorial Search (SoCS).
[2024.05] Organized the 15th Workshop on Optimization and Learning in Multiagent Systems (OptLearnMAS) at AAMAS-24.
[2024.04] Two papers (one on guidance graph optimization and one on mechanism design) were accepted to IJCAI-24.
[2024.03] Three papers (one on combined target assignment and pathfinding, one on MAPF competition, and one on multi-arm motion planning) were accepted to SoCS-24.
[2024.02] Five papers (on multi-robot plan execution, multi-arm motion planning, 3D warehouses, multi-objective search, and learned policy postprocessing) were accepted to ICAPS-24.
[2024.02] Gave seminar talks at CCFAI, Autonomy Talks, the CMU RI seminar, and Simon Fraser University.
[2023.12] Invited talk at Amazon Robotics.
[2023.12] Two papers (one on multi-agent plan execution and the other on traffic assignment) were accepted to AAAI-24.
[2023.12] Our team won The League of Robot Runners, a competition sponsored by Amazon Robotics on multi-robot coordination. We ranked first overall and in the fast mover category, and second in line honours. See more details here.
[2023.12] Our paper Solving Multi-Agent Target Assignment and Path Finding with a Single Constraint Tree was selected as a finalist for the MRS-23 Best Paper Award.
[2023.10] One paper on environment generation was accepted to NeurIPS 2023; one on target assignment and pathfinding was accepted to MRS 2023; one on task and motion planning was published in Autonomous Robots; and one on multi-agent meeting was published in Artificial Intelligence.
[2023.10] Organized the AAAI-23 Fall Symposium Series on Agent Teaming in Mixed-Motive Situations.
[2023.07] Honored to receive the ICAPS-23 Best Dissertation Award for my dissertation.
[2023.07] Our paper Deadline-Aware Multi-Agent Tour Planning received the Best Student Paper Honorable Mention at ICAPS-23.
[2023.07] Organized SoCS-23 Doctoral Consortium.
[2023.06] Honored to receive the IFAAMAS Victor Lesser Distinguished Dissertation Award for my dissertation.
[2023.05] Organized AAMAS-23 workshop on Optimization and Learning in Multiagent Systems.
[2023.05] Invited talk at OMRON innovation center.
[2023.05] Honored to receive the USC Viterbi School of Engineering Best Dissertation Award, called the William F. Ballhaus, Jr. Prize for Excellence in Graduate Engineering Research, for my dissertation.
[2023.04] Our paper on layout optimization for multi-robot systems was accepted to IJCAI-23.
[2023.04] Invited talk at Robotics and Controls Seminar at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.
[2023.02] Organized AAAI-23 workshop on Multi-Agent Path Finding.
[2022.11] Our paper on MAPF for autonomous vehicle coordination was accepted to AAAI 2023.
[2022.06] Invited talk at ICAPS-22 workshop on Heuristics and Search for Domain-independent Planning.
[2022.05] Organized AAMAS-22 workshop on Optimization and Learning in Multiagent Systems.
[2022.05] Organized AAMAS-22 tutorial on Recent Advances in Multi-Agent Path Finding.
[2022.02] 4 papers accepted to SoCS 2022.
[2022.02] 1 paper accepted to ICRA 2022.
[2021.12] Our paper on MAPF with precedence constraints was accepted to AAMAS 2022.
[2021.12] 4 papers accepted to AAAI 2022.
[2021.08] I was selected to participate in the Rising Stars in EECS 2021 workshop at MIT.
[2021.08] Our system demonstration on railway planning received the People's Choice Best System Demonstration Award at ICAPS 2021. Check out our video here.
[2021.05] I received a WISE Merit Award from USC.
[2021.05] I received a Computer Science Best Research Assistant Award from USC.
[2021.04] Our MAPF-LNS paper was accepted to IJCAI 2021.
[2021.02] Our Flatland paper and CBICS paper were accepted to ICAPS 2021.
[2021.02] I gave 2 virtual talks on our EECBS paper and RHCR paper at AAAI 2021.
[2020.12] Our team "An_Old_Driver" won both Round 1 and Round 2 of the 2020 Flatland Challenge, a rail scheduling competition. I gave a virtual talk at the NeurIPS 2020 competition track.
[2020.12] 4 papers accepted to AAAI 2021.
[2020.10] 2 virtual talks at ICAPS 2020.
[2020.05] 2 virtual talks at SoCS 2020.
[2020.05] 2 virtual talks at AAMAS 2020.
[2020.04] Our paper "Multi-Agent Path Finding with Mutex Propagation" received the outstanding student paper award at ICAPS 2020.
[2020.04] 2 papers accepted to IJCAI 2020.
[2020.02] Visited the Optimization Research Group for 6 months at Monash University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia.
[2020.02] A talk at EAAI 2020 in New York, NY, USA.
[2020.01] 2 papers accepted to ICAPS 2020.
[2020.01] A paper and an extended abstract accepted to AAMAS 2020.
[2019.11] Visited Prof. Ariel Felner's group for 2 weeks at Ben-Gurion University, Be'er Sheva, Israel.
[2019.10] A talk at the Amazon Research Awards – Robotics Symposium in Boston, MA, USA.
[2019.08] 2 talks at IJCAI 2019 in Macau, China.
[2019.07] 2 talks at ICAPS 2019 in Berkeley, CA, USA.
[2019.05] Summer research intern at Amazon Robotics, Seattle, WA, USA.
[2019.05] A paper accepted to IJCAI 2019.
[2019.03] Received a Technology Commercialization Award from the USC Stevens Center for Innovation Technology.
[2019.02] 2 short papers accepted to ICAPS 2019.
[2019.01] 2 spotlight talks at AAAI 2019 in Honolulu, Hawaii, USA.
[2019.01] A paper and an extended abstract accepted to AAMAS 2019.
[2018.12] Visited Prof. Ariel Felner's group for 3 weeks at Ben-Gurion University, Be'er Sheva, Israel.
[2018.11] 3 papers accepted to AAAI 2019.
[2018.04] A paper accepted to IJCAI 2018.
[2018.01] An extended abstract accepted to AAMAS 2018.
[2018.01] A short paper accepted to ICAPS 2018.
[2017.08] PhD student at USC!