Prospective Graduate Students

Thank you for your interest in studying with me. I am looking for a new MSc student to work on neuro-symbolic AI. The student would be working with two PhD students. The starting point would be applying versions of neuro-symbolic baselines to our datasets so we can compare them to our approach.

Basic Conditions

  • Preferred start Spring 2026 (application deadline August 9, 2025)
  • Annual support $33,000 minimum
  • See below for more details

Assets and Criteria

  • See "sending me application materials below"
  • Degree from top university in your home country, GPA > 3.0, higher in related courses (e.g., AI, ML). In a big country like China, I would be looking for a top 30 university
  • Any background in
    • graph neural networks
    • formal logic

Scientific Background

Applying to SFU

  • Interested external students should start with the Simon Fraser University website. Details of admission can be found at the Student Services site. Information about applying for graduate study in the School of Computing Science is posted here. Foreign students need to pass an English test .
  • Please understand that students are admitted by a School-level competition and not directly by any faculty member.
  • Funding Sources. One question that students often ask is about the availability of financial support. If you apply and are admitted, you will receive a letter detailing the minimum amount of financial support you can expect. In addition to research assistantships from research grants, there are several other funding sources, such as teaching assistantships, scholarships and internships. I have collected information about some common programs here. My policy is to match or exceed the funding offered by the University of British Columbia .

Sending Me Application Materials.

The standard SFU application process is fine, if you put me down as a potential supervisor, I will definitely review your application. Personal communications will have less priority to review, but if you want to go with one, here are suggestions for how you can help me evaluate your application.
  • Send me a hardcopy rather than an email. I understand however that from some countries it's difficult or expensive to mail hardcopy.
  • If you do send email, put the words "penguins" in the subject header. That way I know whether you have read my web page or you are just spamming me.
  • Sending me reminder emails gives me a bad impression.
  • Here is some extra information that would help me evaluate your application. The best research, in my opinion, combines a theoretical foundation with empirical evaluation (simulations) and good scientific writing. I understand that you may have gaps in any, or all, of these areas. After all, you are coming to graduate school because you want to learn and improve. Still, how far we can go in our work together depends on where we start. So if you send me material about yourself, please include the following.
    1. The hardest proof you've ever done. Original research is best, but even a course assignment is informative. If you haven't done any hard proofs, just note that. If you have more than one, just pick one. I can always ask for more.
    2. The best English you've written. Preferably scientific English but other kinds of prose are fine. Or even poetry.
    3. The best code you've written. Any common programming language is fine. A brief explanation of what the program is supposed to do (input-output) would be helpful. Please don't spend your valuable time explaining it in detail, I just want to see what you've done already. Perhaps the comments and documentation you wrote when you produced the code will explain it well enough.
    4. How would you rank yourself compared to your peers? And why?
    5. A brief statement about your motivation. Sometimes the motivation is just that you find research fascinating and want to spend time doing it. However, in my experience students often have more specific career goals, for example: I want to get into a Ph.D. program, obtain a faculty position, gain a teaching position, go into industry but not into development etc. This can also go into your Statement of Purpose.