Biography

Biographical Sketch

Vincent Y. F. Tan is a Professor in the Departments of Mathematics and Electrical and Computer Engineering at the National University of Singapore (NUS), where he is also an National Research Foundation (NRF) Investigator. His research lies at the intersection of information theory, machine learning, and sequential decision making. He is particularly interested in developing information-theoretic foundations for modern machine learning, reinforcement learning, multi-armed bandits, statistical learning, and optimization. Before joining NUS in 2014, he was a Scientist at the Institute for Infocomm Research (A*STAR), a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, and received the Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 2011 after completing the B.A. and M.Eng. degrees in Electrical and Information Sciences at the University of Cambridge.

He currently serves as Deputy Head (Graduate Programmes) of the Department of Mathematics and as a member of the NUS University Promotion and Tenure Committee. Internationally, he is an Area Editor for the IEEE Transactions on Information Theory and an elected member of the IEEE Information Theory Society Board of Governors. He previously served as an IEEE Information Theory Society Distinguished Lecturer (2018–2019) and regularly serves as a Senior Area Chair for leading machine learning conferences including ICML, NeurIPS, and ICLR.

His research has been recognized by the Singapore NRF Investigatorship (2026), the NRF Fellowship (2018), the NUS Young Researcher Award (2019), the NUS Young Investigator Award (2014), and the MIT EECS Jin-Au Kong Outstanding Doctoral Thesis Prize (2011). He has also received two Engineering Educator Awards (2020 and 2021), the NUS Annual Teaching Excellence Award (2022), the Faculty of Science Award for Mentorship Excellence (Research) (2023), and, most recently, the Faculty of Science Teaching Excellence Award (2025). His research group develops information-theoretic foundations for modern machine learning, reinforcement learning, and large language models, with the goal of understanding the fundamental limits of learning, inference, and sequential decision making while designing algorithms that are both statistically and computationally efficient.

Education

Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS), Minor in Mathematics
Advisor: Prof. Alan S. Willsky
Jin-Au Kong outstanding EE thesis prize
Jan 2007 – Feb 2011

University of Cambridge, Sidney Sussex College
B.A. and M.Eng. in the Electrical and Information Sciences Tripos (EIST)
Supervisor: Dr. Cédric Févotte
Charles Lamb prize (awarded to the top M.Eng. student in EIST)
Sep 2001 – Jun 2005

Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Undergraduate exchange student in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS)
Sep 2003 – May 2004

Work Experience

Jul 2023 – present: Professor, Department of Mathematics and Department of ECE, NUS
Aug 2022 – Jun 2023: Associate Professor, Department of Mathematics and Department of ECE, NUS
Jan 2019 – Jul 2022: Dean’s Chair Associate Professor, Department of ECE and Department of Mathematics, NUS
Jan 2018 – Dec 2018: Associate Professor (with tenure), Department of ECE and Department of Mathematics, NUS
Jun 2014 – Dec 2017: Assistant Professor, Department of ECE and Department of Mathematics, NUS
Jan 2014 – Jun 2014: Assistant Professor, Department of ECE, NUS
Feb 2012 – Dec 2013: Scientist, Institute for Infocomm Research, A*STAR, Singapore
Jan 2011 – Dec 2011: Postdoc, Department of ECE at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (Host: Prof. Stark Draper)
Summer 2009: Intern, E-Science group of Microsoft Research in Los Angeles, CA
Summer 2008: Intern, Machine Learning and Perception group of Microsoft Research in Cambridge, U.K.
Jun 2006 – Dec 2006: Research Officer, Institute for Infocomm Research, A*STAR, Singapore
Jun 2005 – Jun 2006: National Service as a Programmer in the Defence Medical & Environmental Research Institute (DMERI)
Feb 2000 – Jun 2001: National Service as an Admin Support Assistant in 130 SQN, RSAF, Bullsbrook, Western Australia

Research Awards

2026: Singapore NRF Investigatorship (Class of 2026)
2023: NUS Faculty (of Science) Award for Mentorship Excellence (Research Category)
2022: Dean’s Chair Associate Professorship (Reappointment)
2019: Dean’s Chair Associate Professorship
2019: NUS Young Researcher Award (see an accompanying article by NUS Research)
2018/9: Distinguished Lecturer of the IEEE Information Theory Society
2018: Engineering Young Researcher Award in the Faculty of Engineering, NUS
2018: Singapore National Research Foundation (NRF) Fellowship (Class of 2018)
2016: Finalist for the SNAS Young Scientist Award
2014: Finalist for ISIT Student Paper Award (with Jonathan Scarlett)
2014: NUS Young Investigator Award
2012: A*STAR Philip Yeo prize for outstanding achievements in research
2011: MIT EECS Jin-Au Kong outstanding doctoral thesis prize
2005: Charles Lamb Prize (top M.Eng. student in the Electrical and Information Sciences Tripos)

Student Research Awards

2023: First place in the 2023 SIGMOD student research competition in the undergraduate category for FYP student Xiaochen Zhu
2023: Outstanding Undergraduate Researcher Prize for FYP student He Yuan
2023: Outstanding Undergraduate Researcher Prize for FYP student Xiaochen Zhu
2023: Louis Chen Hsiao Yun Best Dissertation Prize for former Ph.D. student Zixin Zhong
2023: SDSC Dissertation Research Fellowship 2022 for Ph.D. student Fengzhuo Zhang
2021: Outstanding Undergraduate Researcher Prize for UROPS and HYP student Joel Chang

Teaching Awards

2025: NUS Faculty (of Science) Teaching Excellence Award
2023: NUS Faculty (of Science) Award for Mentorship Excellence (Research Category)
2020/21: Annual Teaching Excellence Award (University level)
2020/21: Finalist for the University's Outstanding Educator Award (University level)
2020/21: Engineering Educator Award
2019/20: Engineering Educator Award
2017/18: NUS Faculty of Engineering Teaching Honours List
2016/17: NUS Faculty of Engineering Teaching Commendation List
2015/16: NUS Faculty of Engineering Teaching Commendation List
2014/15: NUS Faculty of Engineering Teaching Commendation List

Service Accolades

2024: Outstanding Editorial Board Award from the IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing
2022: Selected as a "Top Reviewer" for NeurIPS 2022.
2022: Selected as a "Top Reviewer" for AISTATS 2022
2020: Outstanding Editorial Board Award from the IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing

Service to the Academic Community

2025 - present: Senior Area Chair of the International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML)
2025 - present: Senior Area Chair of the Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS)
2025 – present: Area Editor for Shannon Theory and Information Measures for the IEEE Transactions on Information Theory
2024 – present: Action Editor for Transactions on Machine Learning Research
2023 – present: Area Chair of the International Conference on Learning Representations (ICLR)
2021 – present: Elected member of the IEEE Information Theory Society Board of Governors
2025 – 2026: Senior Program Committee Member of the AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence
2022 – 2026: Senior Area Editor for the IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing
2022 – 2025: Editorial board of reviewers for the Journal of Machine Learning Research
2024 – 2025: Area Chair of the International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML)
2024 – 2025: Program Committee Member of the AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence
2024 – 2025: TPC co-chair of the 2025 International Symposium on Information Theory in Ann Arbor, Michigan
2020 – 2025: Associate Editor for Machine Learning and Statistics for the IEEE Transactions on Information Theory
2023 – 2025: Area Chair of the Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS)
2018 – 2022: Associate Editor for the IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing
2020 – 2021: TPC co-chair of the 2021 Information Theory Workshop (ITW) in Kanazawa, Japan
2020 – 2021: Lead Guest Editor (with Prof. Yao Xie) for the IEEE Journal on Selected Areas of Information Theory (Special Issue in Sequential, Active, and Reinforcement Learning) (See the cover page and editorial.)
2017 – 2018: Guest Editor for the IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Signal Processing (Special Issue in Information-Theoretic Methods in Data Acquisition, Analysis, and Processing)
2016 – 2019: Associate Editor for the IEEE Transactions on Green Communications and Networking
2015 – 2018: Associate Editor for the IEEE Transactions on Communications (Coding and Information Theory Area)
2012 – 2015: Elected Member of the IEEE Signal Processing Society Machine Learning and Signal Processing (MLSP) Technical Committee

NUS Internal Service

Jul 2026 – present: Deputy Head (Graduate Programmes) of the Department of Mathematics
Jul 2025 – present: Member of the University Teaching Excellence Committee (UTEC)
Jul 2024 – present: Member of the University Promotion and Tenure Committee (UPTC)
Jul 2023 – present: Member of the Executive Committee of the Department of Mathematics
2025 – 2026: Member of the NUS Faculty of Science Dean Search Committee
Jul 2023 – Jun 2024: Member of the Search Committee of the Department of Mathematics
Jul 2020 – Jun 2022: Chairperson of the University Mid-Term Advisory Report Committee for Science and Technology Disciplines (S&T U-MTARC)
Jul 2018 – Jun 2022: Member of the Faculty (of Engineering) Promotion and Tenure Committee (FPTC)
Jul 2018 – Jun 2022: Coordinator of the ECE Department Faculty Search Committee
Jul 2019 – Jun 2020: Member of the University-level S&T U-MTARC

Outside Academia

I enjoy distance running and regularly participate in parkruns, 10 km races and half marathons.

Current Personal Bests

5 km: 21:39 (Bishan parkrun)
10 km: 46:14 (Seoul Nowon-gu Mayor's Cup)
Half marathon: 1:42:56 (London Riverside)