Publications

Latent Spherical Flow Policy for Reinforcement Learning with Combinatorial Actions

Lingkai Kong, Anagha Satish, Hezi Jiang, Akseli Kangaslahti, Andrew Ma, Wenbo Chen, Mingxiao Song, Lily Xu, Milind Tambe

@article{kong2026latent,
  title={Latent Spherical Flow Policy for Reinforcement Learning with Combinatorial Actions},
  author={Kong, Lingkai and Satish, Anagha and Jiang, Hezi and Kangaslahti, Akseli and Ma, Andrew and Chen, Wenbo and Song, Mingxiao Xu, Lily and Tambe, Milind},
  journal={under review},
  year={2026},
}

Artificial Replay: A Meta-Algorithm for Harnessing Historical Data in Bandits

Siddhartha Banerjee, Sean R. Sinclair, Milind Tambe, Lily Xu, Christina Lee Yu

@inproceedings{banerjee2023artificial,
  title={Artificial Replay: A Meta-Algorithm for Harnessing Historical Data in Bandits},
  author={Banerjee, Siddhartha and Sinclair, Sean R. and Tambe, Milind and Xu, Lily and Yu, Christina Lee},
  booktitle={arXiv},
  year={2023},
}

Generative AI Against Poaching: Latent Composite Flow Matching for Wildlife Conservation

Lingkai Kong, Haichuan Wang, Charles A. Emogor, Vincent Börsch-Supan, Lily Xu, Milind Tambe

@inproceedings{kong2026generative,
title={Generative AI Against Poaching: Latent Composite Flow Matching for Wildlife Conservation},
author={Kong, Lingkai and Wang, Haichuan and Emogor, Charles A. and Börsch-Supan, Vincent and Xu, Lily and Tambe, Milind},
booktitle={38th Conference on Innovative Applications of Artificial Intelligence (IAAI-26)},
year={2026},
}

From maps to models: Participation and contestability in the dynamic management of natural resources

Caleb Scoville, Razvan Amironesei, Lily Xu, Melissa Chapman, Nicholas R. Record, and Carl Boettiger

@inproceedings{scoville2025from,
title={From Maps to Models: Participation and Contestability in the Dynamic Management of Natural Resources},
author={Scoville, Caleb and Amironesei, Razvan and Xu, Lily and Chapman, Melissa and R Record, Nicholas and Boettiger, Carl},
booktitle={Geo},
year={2025},
}

Reinforcement learning with combinatorial actions for coupled restless bandits

Lily Xu, Bryan Wilder, Elias B. Khalil, Milind Tambe

@inproceedings{xu2025reinforcement,
title={Reinforcement learning with combinatorial actions for coupled restless bandits},
author={Xu, Lily and Wilder, Bryan and Khalil, Elias B. and Tambe, Milind},
booktitle={Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Learning Representations},
year={2025},
}

A Bayesian Approach to Online Learning for Contextual Restless Bandits with Applications to Public Health

Biyonka Liang, Lily Xu, Aparna Taneja, Milind Tambe, Lucas Janson

@inproceedings{liang2025bayesian,
title={A {Bayesian} Approach to Online Learning for Contextual Restless Bandits with Applications to Public Health},
author={Liang, Biyonka and Xu, Lily and Taneja, Aparna and Tambe, Milind and Janson, Lucas},
booktitle={Proceedings of the 39th AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence},
year={2025},
}

Unlocking the value of ranger-based monitoring for biodiversity conservation and protected area management

Timothy Kuiper, Anthony Dancer, Colin M. Beale, Arash Ghoddousi, Harriet Ibbett, Laure Joanny, Aidan Keane, Blessing Kavhu, Daniel Makaza, E.J. Milner-Gulland, Jennifer F. Moore, Lily Xu

@inproceedings{kuiper2024unlocking,
title={Unlocking the value of ranger-based monitoring for biodiversity conservation and protected area management},
author={Kuiper, Tim and Dancer, Anthony and Beale, Colin and Ghoddousi, Arash and Ibbett, Harriet and Joanny, Laure and Kavhu, Blessing and Keane, Aidan and Makaza, Daniel and Milner-Gulland, E.J. and Moore, Jennifer and Xu, Lily},
booktitle={Conservation Letters},
year={2025},
}

High-stakes decisions from low-quality data: AI decision-making for planetary health

Lily Xu

@phdthesis{xu2024highstakes,
title={High-stakes decisions from low-quality data: {AI} decision-making for planetary health},
author={Xu, Lily},
year={2024},
month={May},
address={Cambridge, MA},
note={Available at \url{https://lily-x.github.io/files/LilyXu_dissertation.pdf}},
school={Harvard University},
type={PhD thesis}
}

Biodiversity monitoring for a just planetary future

Melissa Chapman, Benjamin R. Goldstein, Christopher J. Schell, Justin S. Brashares, Neil H. Carter, Diego Ellis-Soto, Hilary Oliva Faxon, Jenny E. Goldstein, Benjamin S. Halpern, Joycelyn Longdon, Kari EA Norman, Dara O'Rourke, Caleb Scoville, Lily Xu, Carl Boettiger

@article{chapman2024,
title={Biodiversity monitoring for a just planetary future},
author={Chapman, Melissa and Goldstein, Benjamin R. and Schell, Christopher J. and Brashares, Justin S. and Carter, Neil H. and Ellis-Soto, Diego and Faxon, Hilary Oliva and Golstein, Jenny E. and Halpern, Benjamin S. and Longdon, Joycelyn and Norman, Kari EA and O'Rourke, Dara and Scoville, Caleb and Xu, Lily and Boettiger, Carl},
journal={Science},
volume={383},
number={6678},
pages={34--36},
year={2024},
publisher={American Association for the Advancement of Science},
}

Reflections from the Workshop on AI-Assisted Decision Making for Conservation

Lily Xu*, Esther Rolf*, Sara Beery, Joseph R. Bennett, Tanya Berger-Wolf, Tanya Birch, Elizabeth Bondi-Kelly, Justin Brashares, Melissa Chapman, Anthony Corso, Andrew Davies, Nikhil Garg, Angela Gaylard, Robert Heilmayr, Hannah Kerner, Konstantin Klemmer, Vipin Kumar, Lester Mackey, Claire Monteleoni, Paul Moorcroft, Jonathan Palmer, Andrew Perrault, David Thau, Milind Tambe

@inproceedings{xu2023reflections,
  title={Reflections from the Workshop on {AI}-Assisted Decision Making for
  Conservation},
  author={Xu, Lily and Rolf, Esther and Beery, Sara and Bennett, Joseph R. and Berger-Wolf, Tanya and Birch, Tanya and Bondi-Kelly, Elizabeth and Brashares, Justin and Chapman, Melissa and Corso, Anthony and Davies, Andrew and Garg, Nikhil and Gaylard, Angela and Heilmayr, Robert and Kerner, Hannah and Klemmer, Konstantin and Kumar, Vipin and Mackey, Lester and Monteleoni, Claire and Moorcroft, Paul and Palmer, Jonathan and Perrault, Andrew and Thau, David and Tambe, Milind},
  booktitle={arXiv},
  year={2023},
}

Optimistic Whittle Index Policy: Online Learning for Restless Bandits

Kai Wang*, Lily Xu*, Aparna Taneja, Milind Tambe

@inproceedings{wang2023online,
title={Optimistic {Whittle} Index Policy: Online Learning for Restless Bandits},
author={Wang, Kai and Xu, Lily and Taneja, Aparna and Tambe, Milind},
booktitle={Proc.~Thirty-Seventh AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI)},
year={2023},
}

Robust Planning over Restless Groups: Engagement Interventions for a Large-Scale Maternal Telehealth Program

Jackson A. Killian*, Arpita Biswas*, Lily Xu*, Shresth Verma*, Vineet Nair, Aparna Taneja, Aparna Hegde, Neha Madhiwalla, Paula Rodriguez Diaz, Sonja Johnson-Yu, Milind Tambe

@inproceedings{killian2023groups,
title={Robust Planning over Restless Groups: Engagement Interventions for a Large-Scale Maternal Telehealth Program},
author={Killian, Jackson A. and Biswas, Arpita and Xu, Lily and Verma, Shresth and Nair, Vineet and Taneja, Aparna and Hegde, Aparna and Madhiwalla, Neha and Rodriguez Diaz, Paula and Johnson-Yu, Sonja and Tambe, Milind},
booktitle={Proc.~Thirty-Seventh AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI)},
year={2023},
}

Flexible Budgets in Restless Bandits: A Proximal Primal-Dual Algorithm for Efficient Budget Allocation

Paula Rodriguez Diaz, Jackson A. Killian, Lily Xu, Aparna Taneja, Arun Sai Suggala, Milind Tambe

@inproceedings{rodriguez2023online,
title={Flexible Budgets in Restless Bandits: A Proximal Primal-Dual Algorithm for Efficient Budget Allocation},
author={Rodriguez Diaz, Paula and Killian, Jackson A. and Xu, Lily and Taneja, Aparna and Suggala, Arun Sai and Tambe, Milind},
booktitle={Proc.~Thirty-Seventh AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI)},
year={2023},
}

Bridging adaptive management and reinforcement learning for more robust decisions

Melissa Chapman, Lily Xu, Marcus Lapeyrolerie, Carl Boettiger

@article{chapman2023bridging,
title={Bridging adaptive management and reinforcement learning for more robust decisions},
author={Chapman, Melissa and Xu, Lily and Lapeyrolerie, Marcus and Boettiger, Carl},
journal={Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B},
volume={378},
number={1881},
pages={20220195},
year={2023},
publisher={The Royal Society},
}

Environment, Society, and Machine Learning (book chapter)

Caleb Scoville, Hilary Faxon, Melissa Chapman, Samantha Jo Fried, Lily Xu, Carl Boettiger, J. Michael Reed, Marcus Lapeyrolerie, Amy Van Scoyoc, and Razvan Amironesei

@incollection{scoville2023environment,
author    = {Scoville, Caleb and Faxon, Hilary and Chapman, Melissa and Fried, Samantha Jo and Xu, Lily and Boettiger, Carl and Reed, J. Michael and Lapeyrolerie, Marcus and Van Scoyoc, Amy and Amironesei, Razvan},
title       = {Environment, Society, and Machine Learning},
editor      = {Borch, Christian and Pardo-Guerra, Juan Pablo},
booktitle   = {Oxford Handbook of the Sociology of Machine Learning},
publisher   = {Oxford University Press},
year        = {2023},
}

Restless and Uncertain: Robust Policies for Restless Bandits via Deep Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning

Jackson A. Killian, Lily Xu, Arpita Biswas, Milind Tambe

@inproceedings{killian2022restless,
title={Restless and Uncertain: Robust Policies for Restless Bandits via Deep Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning},
author={Killian, Jackson A. and Xu, Lily and Biswas, Arpita and Tambe, Milind},
booktitle={Proc.~38th Conference on Uncertainty in Artificial Intelligence (UAI)},
year={2022},
}

Ranked Prioritization of Groups in Combinatorial Bandit Allocation

Lily Xu, Arpita Biswas, Fei Fang, Milind Tambe

@inproceedings{xu2022ranked,
title={Ranked Prioritization of Groups in Combinatorial Bandit Allocation},
author={Xu, Lily and Biswas, Arpita and Fang, Fei and Tambe, Milind},
booktitle={Proc.~31st International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI)},
year={2022},
}

Coordinating Followers to Reach Better Equilibria: End-to-End Gradient Descent for Stackelberg Games

Kai Wang, Lily Xu, Andrew Perrault, Michael K. Reiter, Milind Tambe

@inproceedings{wang2022coordinating,
title={Coordinating Followers to Reach Better Equilibria: End-to-End Gradient Descent for {Stackelberg} Games},
author={Wang, Kai and Xu, Lily and Perrault, Andrew and Reiter, Michael K. and Tambe, Milind},
booktitle={Proc.~36th AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI)},
year={2022},
}

Robust Reinforcement Learning Under Minimax Regret for Green Security

Lily Xu, Andrew Perrault, Fei Fang, Haipeng Chen, Milind Tambe

@inproceedings{xu2021robust,
title={Robust Reinforcement Learning Under Minimax Regret for Green Security},
author={Xu, Lily and Perrault, Andrew and Fang, Fei and Chen, Haipeng and Tambe, Milind},
booktitle={Proc.~37th Conference on Uncertainty in Artificial Intelligence (UAI)},
year={2021},
}

Envisioning Communities: A Participatory Approach Towards AI for Social Good

Elizabeth Bondi*, Lily Xu*, Diana Acosta-Navas, Jackson A. Killian

@inproceedings{bondi2021envisioning,
title={Envisioning Communities: A Participatory Approach Towards {AI} for Social Good},
author={Bondi, Elizabeth and Xu, Lily and Acosta-Navas, Diana and Killian, Jackson A.},
booktitle={Proc.~4th AAAI/ACM Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Ethics, and Society (AIES)},
year={2021},
}

Dual-Mandate Patrols: Multi-Armed Bandits for Green Security

Lily Xu, Elizabeth Bondi, Fei Fang, Andrew Perrault, Kai Wang, Milind Tambe

@inproceedings{xu2021dual,
title={Dual-Mandate Patrols: Multi-Armed Bandits for Green Security},
author={Xu, Lily and Bondi, Elizabeth and Fang, Fei and Perrault, Andrew and Wang, Kai and Tambe, Milind},
booktitle={Proc.~35th AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI)},
year={2021},
}

Stay Ahead of Poachers: Illegal Wildlife Poaching Prediction and Patrol Planning Under Uncertainty with Field Test Evaluations

Lily Xu*, Shahrzad Gholami*, Sara Mc Carthy, Bistra Dilkina, Andrew Plumptre, Milind Tambe, Rohit Singh, Mustapha Nsubuga, Joshua Mabonga, Margaret Driciru, Fred Wanyama, Aggrey Rwetsiba, Tom Okello, Eric Enyel

@inproceedings{xu2020stay,
title={Stay Ahead of Poachers: Illegal Wildlife Poaching Prediction and Patrol Planning Under Uncertainty with Field Test Evaluations},
author={Xu, Lily and Gholami, Shahrzad and Mc Carthy, Sara and Dilkina, Bistra and Plumptre, Andrew and Tambe, Milind and Singh, Rohit and Nsubuga, Mustapha and Mabonga, Joshua and Driciru, Margaret and Wanyama, Fred and Rwetsiba, Aggrey and Okello, Tom and Enyel, Eric},
booktitle={Proc.~IEEE 36th International Conference on Data Engineering (ICDE)},
year={2020},
}