Mingyu Guo

Senior Lecturer · Adelaide University

Mingyu Guo

AI for commerce and defence, grounded in game theory and optimisation.

mingyu.guo at adelaide dot edu dot au 4.19 Ingkarni Wardli Building Adelaide University, Australia

Profile

About Me

I am a Senior Lecturer, Program Director of the Master of Computer Science, and Graduate Research Coordinator in the School of Computer Science and Information Technology, Adelaide University.

I use algorithmic game theory and optimisation to study how AI systems make decisions when participants have competing interests. My research spans two themes:

Agentic Commerce and the Economics of Generative AI. I study how AI agents buy, sell and negotiate on behalf of people and organisations. Current work includes advertising in language-model responses, the procurement and pricing of AI services, and auction design for AI tokens.

AI for Drone and Cyber Defence. I develop algorithms for coordinating drone teams and protecting enterprise networks against cyber attacks. This work addresses how to choose effective strategies at scale while accounting for an adversary's responses, with support from defence and industry partners.

Before joining Adelaide, I was a Lecturer at the University of Liverpool. I hold a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Duke University, where my dissertation was runner-up for the Victor Lesser Distinguished Dissertation Award. I also hold an M.S. in Applied Mathematics from the University of Florida and a B.S. in Mathematics from Zhejiang University.

Highlights

  • AAAI 2027 Workshop Program Co-Chair Co-leading the conference-wide workshop programme.
  • AAMAS 2026 Best Student Paper nomination One of five nominated papers, for work on drone defence by Grant Douglas and co-authors through an industry PhD with Saab Australia.
  • Faculty Executive Dean's Award for International Engagement - International Partnership, 2025 Recognising work on university partnerships and international student recruitment as Associate Head International and Acting Associate Dean International at the Faculty of Sciences, Engineering and Technology (SET), University of Adelaide.
  • Invited research talks, 2024 Google DeepMind, Carnegie Mellon, Harvard and Oxford.
  • Research and supervision 90+ publications, including 50+ at CORE A*/A venues; A$1.5M+ in total project funding as lead or co-investigator since 2022; 10 HDR completions.

Research Partnerships

Industry Collaboration

I collaborate with industry and government on decision problems that combine AI, optimisation, and strategic interaction. Current and recent partnerships span defence and autonomous systems with Saab Australia and the Defence Science and Technology Group, cybersecurity with the Cyber Security Cooperative Research Centre, health operations with SA Pathology, and PropTech with DDDI Group.

I welcome conversations about collaborative research, industry PhDs, grant partnerships, and translating algorithms into decision-support tools and prototypes. Contact me to discuss a potential collaboration.

Research Output

Selected Publications

View all publications
  1. NeurIPS 2026 CORE A*

    Extending Myerson's Optimal Auctions to Correlated Bidders via Neural Network Interpolation

    Mingyu Guo, Jiayuan Liu, Vincent Conitzer

    Neural-network methods for designing auctions when bidders' valuations are correlated, in collaboration with Carnegie Mellon.

  2. COLM 2026 Collaboration with CMU, Oxford and Harvard

    Incentive-Aware Multi-Fidelity Optimization for Generative Advertising in Large Language Models

    Jiayuan Liu, Barry Wang, Jiarui Gan, Tonghan Wang, Leon Xie, Mingyu Guo, Vincent Conitzer

    Selecting and pricing advertising in language-model responses while accounting for users' interests, advertisers' incentives and generation costs.

  3. IJCAI 2026 CORE A*

    Taming Treewidth DP with Modulators: A General Booster for Graph Heuristics

    Jialiang Li, Aneta Neumann, Frank Neumann, Hung Nguyen, Mingyu Guo

  4. ICML 2026 CORE A*

    Rethinking Gating Mechanism in Sparse MoE: Handling Arbitrary Modality Inputs with Confidence-Guided Gate

    Liangwei Nathan Zheng, Wei Emma Zhang, Mingyu Guo, Olaf Maennel, Weitong Chen

  5. AAMAS 2026 CORE ABest Student Paper Nomination, Oral presentation

    Building Large-Scale Drone Defenses from Small-Team Strategies

    Grant Douglas, Stephen Franklin, Claudia Szabo, Mingyu Guo

    Building large-scale drone defences from small-team strategies, through an industry PhD collaboration with Saab Australia.

  6. AAAI 2026 CORE A*Oral presentation

    On the Edge of Core (Non-)emptiness: An Automated Reasoning Approach to Approval-based Multi-winner Voting

    Ratip Emin Berker, Emanuel Tewolde, Vincent Conitzer, Mingyu Guo, Marijn Heule, Lirong Xia

    Author order: students alphabetical, followed by supervisors alphabetical; also to be presented in the ICLR 2026 Workshop on AI for Mechanism Design and Strategic Decision Making.

  7. NeurIPS 2025 CORE A*

    Can Dependencies Induced by LLM-Agent Workflows Be Trusted?

    Yu Yao, Yiliao Song, Yian Xie, Mengdan Fan, Mingyu Guo, Tongliang Liu

  8. IJCAI 2025 CORE A*

    Adaptive Wizard for Removing Cross-Tier Misconfigurations in Active Directory

    Huy Quang Ngo, Mingyu Guo, Hung X. Nguyen

  9. AAAI 2024 CORE A*

    Worst-Case VCG Redistribution Mechanism Design Based on the Lottery Ticket Hypothesis

    Mingyu Guo

  10. AAAI 2024 CORE A*

    Limited Query Graph Connectivity Test

    Mingyu Guo, Jialiang Li, Aneta Neumann, Frank Neumann, Hung X. Nguyen

  11. INFOCOM 2024 CORE A*

    Catch Me if You Can: Effective Honeypot Placement in Dynamic AD Attack Graphs

    Huy Quang Ngo, Mingyu Guo, Hung X. Nguyen

  12. ACM Transactions on Evolutionary Learning and Optimization 2025

    Hardening Active Directory Graphs via Evolutionary Diversity Optimization-based Policies

    Diksha Goel, Max Ward, Aneta Neumann, Frank Neumann, Hung Nguyen, Mingyu Guo

  13. AAAI 2023 CORE A*

    Scalable Edge Blocking Algorithms for Defending Active Directory Style Attack Graphs

    Mingyu Guo, Max Ward, Aneta Neumann, Frank Neumann, Hung Nguyen

  14. IJCAI 2023 CORE A*

    Diverse Approximations for Monotone Submodular Maximization Problems with a Matroid Constraint

    Anh Viet Do, Mingyu Guo, Aneta Neumann, Frank Neumann

  15. AAAI 2022 CORE A*

    Practical Fixed-Parameter Algorithms for Defending Active Directory Style Attack Graphs

    Mingyu Guo, Jialiang Li, Aneta Neumann, Frank Neumann, Hung Nguyen

Updates

News

  1. Yixin Chen joined my group as a PhD student working on Trustworthy Agentic Commerce.
  2. Our paper Extending Myerson's Optimal Auctions to Correlated Bidders via Neural Network Interpolation, a collaboration with CMU's Foundations of Cooperative AI Lab (FOCAL), was accepted to NeurIPS 2026 as a poster.
  3. I was appointed Program Director of the Master of Computer Science.
  4. Zhuyi Peng started his MPhil.
  5. I am pleased to serve as a Workshop Program Co-Chair for AAAI-27, co-leading the conference-wide workshop program.
  6. Incoming PhD student Huy Trung Truong will work on Agentic Commerce: Optimisation and Mechanism Design for Autonomous Economic Agents in Game-Theoretic Markets.
  7. How can we coordinate multiple sponsors for generative advertising? Our latest collaboration with CMU, Oxford, and Harvard has been accepted to the Conference on Language Modeling (COLM) 2026! Read the full paper on arXiv: Incentive-Aware Multi-Fidelity Optimization for Generative Advertising in Large Language Models.
  8. I secured a new National Industry PhD project with DDDI Group under the Australian Government's National Industry PhD Program.
  9. Our latest collaboration with CMU explores robust multi-agent LLM reasoning under adversarial majorities. Read the full paper on arXiv: The Consensus Trap: Rescuing Multi-Agent LLMs from Adversarial Majorities via Token-Level Collaboration.
  10. Huge congratulations to PhD student Jialiang Li! His paper, Taming Treewidth DP with Modulators: A General Booster for Graph Heuristics, was accepted to IJCAI 2026. This work presents key findings from his MPhil thesis.
  11. Shiman Sheng started her PhD.
  12. Congratulations to my PhD student, Grant Douglas, on his Best Student Paper Nomination at AAMAS (the flagship international conference for autonomous agents) for his paper Building Large-Scale Drone Defenses from Small-Team Strategies.
  13. I was appointed Graduate Research Coordinator of the School of Computer Science and Information Technology, supporting research excellence, mentorship, and impactful graduate research at Adelaide University.
  14. Quang Huy Ngo completed his PhD and received the Dean's Commendation for Doctoral Thesis Excellence.
  15. The paper Building Large-Scale Drone Defenses from Small-Team Strategies was accepted to AAMAS 2026 as an oral presentation (CORE A).
  16. I received the Faculty of Science, Engineering and Technology Executive Dean's International Engagement Award for International Partnership, while also completing my term as Associate Head International of the School of Computer and Mathematical Sciences (2023, 2025).
  17. Jinyang Li started his PhD.
  18. The paper On the Edge of Core (Non-)emptiness: An Automated Reasoning Approach to Approval-based Multi-winner Voting was accepted to AAAI 2026 as an oral presentation.
  19. Felix Lysander Buecheler started his PhD on advertising frameworks and auctions for large language model chats, co-supervised with Dr. Jiarui Gan at Oxford.
  20. I represented Adelaide University at the China International Fair for Trade in Services (CIFTIS), participated in the Adelaide University China Open Days, and joined the SET faculty mission to Vietnam.
  21. The paper Can Dependencies Induced by LLM-Agent Workflows Be Trusted? was accepted to NeurIPS 2025.
  22. I was appointed Acting Associate Dean International (North and East Asia), Faculty of Science, Engineering and Technology (acting period: July-September).
  23. Jialiang Li completed his MPhil and continued to an industry PhD co-funded by SA Pathology.
  24. Adaptive Wizard for Removing Cross-Tier Misconfigurations in Active Directory was accepted to IJCAI 2025.
  25. Trong Nam Dinh and Xiankun Yan completed their PhDs.
  26. I presented at the EconCS Seminar at Harvard University.
  27. I made a research visit to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
  28. Grant Cameron Douglas started his PhD.
  29. I presented at the Computer Science Colloquium at Rutgers University.
  30. I gave an invited talk at Google DeepMind.
  31. I presented at the University of Bath.
  32. I presented at the Algorithmic Game Theory Seminar at Oxford.
  33. I visited the Institute for Ethics in AI at Oxford.
  34. I gave two presentations at AAAI 2024.
  35. I gave two presentations at CMU.
  36. I began a full-year special study visit at the Foundations of Cooperative AI Lab, Carnegie Mellon University (host: Prof. Vincent Conitzer).

Prospective Students

PhD/MPhil Opportunities

I welcome enquiries from prospective PhD/MPhil students in multi-agent AI, generative AI, optimisation, and related areas. I do not currently have a funded scholarship available for international applicants. Relevant options include:

Projects

Project Opportunities for AU Students

Current Adelaide University students are welcome to contact me about Honours and research projects. A project may target a research publication, an industry-facing prototype, or both. Recent student work has involved researchers at CMU, Oxford, and Harvard, as well as industry partners.

Topics can be shaped around research questions, practical applications, startup ideas, or applied systems.

Mentoring

Higher Degree by Research Students

Active

  1. Yixin Chen Ph.D., Principal Supervisor, started 2026 with Prof. Ali Babar Trustworthy Agentic Commerce
  2. Huy Trung Truong Ph.D., Principal Supervisor, started 2026 with A/Prof. Devika Kannan, School of Management, Adelaide University Economic Models for AI Service Procurement
  3. Zhuyi Peng M.Phil., Principal Supervisor, started 2026 with A/Prof. Hau Chan, University of Nebraska and Prof. Ali Babar Game Theory and Optimisation for Commerce with AI Agents
  4. Shiman Sheng Ph.D., Principal Supervisor, started 2026 with Dr. Jiarui Gan, University of Oxford Auction Design for AI Token Markets
  5. Felix Lysander Buecheler Ph.D., Principal Supervisor, started 2025 with Dr. Jiarui Gan, University of Oxford Consumer Behaviour in AI-Mediated Commerce
  6. Jialiang Li Ph.D., Principal Supervisor, started 2025 with Dr. Weitong Chen Machine Learning and Optimisation for Anatomical Pathology Workflow Industry PhD with SA Pathology
  7. Grant Cameron Douglas Ph.D., Principal Supervisor, started 2024 with Prof. Claudia Szabo and Stephen Franklin, Saab Australia Drone Swarm Behaviours and Counter-Strategies Funded by Saab Australia
  8. Quoc Dat Ngo M.Phil., Co-Supervisor, started 2025 with Prof. Hung Nguyen A Categorical Approach to Explainable Artificial Intelligence in Machine Learning
  9. Jinyang Li Ph.D., Co-Supervisor, started 2025 with Prof. Hung Nguyen Safety Guardrails for Large Language Models in Cybersecurity
  10. Jeffrey Chan M.Phil., Co-Supervisor, started 2024 with Prof. Claudia Szabo Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning for Counter-Unmanned Aerial Systems Funded by Praetorian Aeronautics
  11. Liam Wigney Ph.D., Co-Supervisor, started 2024 with Prof. Frank Neumann Search Algorithms for Space and Energy

Completed

  1. Gamage Kokila Kasuni Perera Ph.D., Co-Supervisor, 2022-2026 with Dr. Aneta Neumann and Prof. Frank Neumann Evolutionary Computation with Chance Constraints
  2. Quang Huy Ngo Ph.D., Co-Supervisor, 2022-2026 with Prof. Hung Nguyen Practical Graph Optimisation and AI-Driven Models for Active Directory Security Hardening Dean's Commendation for Doctoral Thesis Excellence! Now a postdoctoral researcher at Adelaide University.
  3. Jialiang Li M.Phil., Principal Supervisor, 2021-2025 with Prof. Hung Nguyen Combinatorial Optimisation via Neural Networks Continuing to a PhD
  4. Xiankun Yan Ph.D., Co-Supervisor, 2022-2025 with Prof. Frank Neumann and Dr. Aneta Neumann Complexity with Chance Constraints
  5. Trong Nam Dinh Ph.D., Co-Supervisor, 2021-2025 with Dr. Ali Pourmousavi Kani Stackelberg Game-Based Electricity Markets Funded by Watt Energy; Co-founder of OptiGrid
  6. Faheem Ullah Ph.D., Co-Supervisor, 2017-2020 with Prof. Ali Babar Cybersecurity Software Architecture Now a continuing Level B Lecturer at the University of Adelaide.
  7. Guanhua Wang Ph.D., Principal Supervisor, 2019-2022 with A/Prof. Wei Emma Zhang Neural Network Mechanism Design Dean's Commendation for Doctoral Thesis Excellence! Now co-founder at NestWeb.
  8. Diksha Goel Ph.D., Principal Supervisor, 2021-2023 with Prof. Hong Shen and A/Prof. Hui Tian Graph Theory and Graph Neural Networks Now a research scientist at CSIRO.
  9. Viet Anh Do Ph.D., Co-Supervisor, 2020-2024 with Prof. Frank Neumann and Dr. Aneta Neumann Diversity in Evolutionary Optimisation Now a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Adelaide.
  10. Congbo Ma Ph.D., Co-Supervisor, 2020-2024 with A/Prof. Wei Emma Zhang Multi-Document Summarization Now a postdoctoral researcher at New York University Abu Dhabi.

Funding

Research Grants

  • AI for Optimal Land Subdivision and Planning Policy Navigation Lead CI / Principal Supervisor · National Industry PhD Program with DDDI Group · AUD 215k stipend (AUD 53,815 × 4 years) · 2026
  • Machine Learning and Optimisation for Anatomical Pathology Workflow Lead CI / Principal Supervisor · Industry PhD Scholarship with SA Pathology · approximately AUD 186k · 2025
  • Optimized Hybrid MARL Techniques for Complex, Dynamic Environments 2nd CI · DSTG · AUD 176k · 2024
  • Warm Starts and Goal-based Heuristics to Improve MARL Performance in Advanced Distributed Defence 2nd CI · Defence Innovation Partnership · AUD 150k · 2024
  • Model Malicious Drone Swarm Behaviours and Devise Counter Strategies Lead/Sole CI · Defence Trailblazer PhD Scholarship with Saab Australia · approximately AUD 218k external cash funding · 2024
  • Socrates: Software Security with a Focus on Critical Technologies 2nd CI · Cybersecurity CRC · AUD 565k · 2023
  • Tackling the TTCP CAGE Challenge Using Monte-Carlo Planning for Large-Scale POMDPs Lead CI · DSTG · AUD 30k · 2022
  • Abstract Game Prototype for Cyber Attack/Defence Lead CI · DSTG · AUD 30k · 2022
  • Machine Learning Techniques to Games on Graphs for Detection and Concealment of Spatially Defined Communication Networks 2nd CI · DSTG · AUD 30k · 2022
  • Tactics Development (Title Sanitised) 2nd CI · DSTG · AUD 576k · 2022
  • Blockchain Enabled Platform for Software Vulnerability Cost Sharing Lead CI · Cybersecurity CRC · AUD 60k · 2019
  • Unlocking Data for Automatic Detection of Insider Threats 2nd CI · Cybersecurity CRC · AUD 30k · 2019
  • Automated Design of Revenue-Maximizing Ad Auction Lead/Sole CI · Microsoft Research Cambridge · GBP 69k · Oct 2012 - Sept 2015

Service

Selected Professional Service

  • Workshop Program Co-ChairAAAI-27 — co-leading the conference-wide workshop program
  • Poster ChairGenetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference, GECCO 2024
  • Workshop ChairWorkshop on AI-based Optimisation (AI-OPT 2023)
  • Senior Program CommitteeAAAI-27, IJCAI 2021, AAMAS 2020, AAAI 2020, AAMAS 2019, AAMAS 2018, PRIMA 2019, PRIMA 2018, IJCAI 2015
  • Guest EditorComputers and Electrical Engineering, special issue on Advances in Parallel Distributed Computing, Applications and Technologies, 2022
  • Local Organization Committee ChairWINE 2012

Invited Talks

Selected Invited Talks

  1. Worst-Case VCG Redistribution Mechanism Design Based on the Lottery Ticket Hypothesis EconCS Seminar, Harvard University, 2024
    Computer Science Colloquium, Rutgers University, 2024
    Google DeepMind, 2024
    Algorithmic Game Theory Seminar, University of Oxford, 2024
    Algorithm Seminar, University of Bath, 2024
    Foundations of Cooperative AI Lab Seminar, Carnegie Mellon University, 2024
  2. Defending Active Directory Network by Combining Fixed Parameter Analysis and Machine Learning Global Engagement Webinar, University of Adelaide, 2023
  3. Scalable Edge Blocking Algorithms for Defending Active Directory Style Attack Graphs Workshop on AI-based Optimisation (AI-OPT), Melbourne, Australia, 2022
  4. Practical Fixed-Parameter Algorithms for Defending Active Directory Style Attack Graphs International Joint Conference on Theoretical Computer Science - Frontier of Algorithmic Wisdom, City University of Hong Kong, 2022
    OPTIMA AI-based Optimisation Seminar Series, Australia, 2022
  5. Mechanism Design for Public Projects via Neural Networks Cyber, Games and AI Seminar Series, Adelaide, Australia, 2021
    Australasian Economic Theory Workshop, Adelaide, Australia, 2020
    Peking University, Beijing, China, 2019
  6. Gini Index based Initial Coin Offering Mechanism Guest Lecture on Blockchain, Peking University, Beijing, China, 2019
  7. Cost Sharing Security Information with Minimal Release Delay University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia, 2019
  8. Revenue-Maximizing Markets for Zero-Day Exploits University of Electro-Communications, Tokyo, Japan, 2017
  9. Competitive Repeated Allocation Without Payments: Carsharing Applications Nara Institute of Technology, Nara, Japan, 2017
    Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou, China, 2016
  10. Revenue Maximization via Hiding Item Attributes Adam Smith Business School, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK, 2013
  11. Computationally Feasible Automated Mechanism Design: General Approach and Case Study on VCG Redistribution Mechanisms Microsoft Research Asia, Beijing, China, 2012
    Institute of Computing Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China, 2012
  12. Better Redistribution with Inefficient Allocation in Multi-Unit Auctions Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI), Amsterdam, Netherlands, 2011
  13. Computationally Feasible Automated Mechanism Design: General Approach and Case Studies University of Southampton, UK, 2010
  14. Undominated Groves Mechanisms Workshop on Prior-Free Mechanism Design, Guanajuato, Mexico, 2010
  15. Optimal VCG Redistribution Mechanisms GAMES 2008 Third World Congress of the Game Theory Society, Evanston, Illinois, USA, 2008
  16. Worst-Case Optimal Redistribution of VCG Payments in Multi-Unit Auctions DIMACS Workshop on the Boundary between Economic Theory and Computer Science, New Jersey, USA, 2007
  17. Improved VCG Redistribution Mechanisms Mini-Workshop on Selected Topics in E-Commerce, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina, USA, 2007
    The 18th International Conference on Game Theory, Stony Brook, NY, USA, 2007