John Doucette

PhD - Artificial intelligence (AI)

Was your undergraduate in CS? If not, what did you study?
Yes.

Why did you choose graduate studies and why did you choose graduate studies in CS?
I did a lot of summer research work during my undergraduate studies and had a great time doing it. Graduate studies in CS seemed like a natural next step.

What is your research area and why did you choose it?
I work in multi-agent systems, which means that I study how systems of many AI agents work together. My focus is on the study of voting systems, which I chose after taking a couple of seminar courses in multi-agent systems and human computation. I think this area really appealed to me because it's about trying to exactly describe complex strategic thinking when other people are trying to thwart or help you. I always liked trying to figure out the best way to play games, or the best way to achieve certain goals, and researching this topic lets me do that at work!

Who is your supervisor and why did you choose to work with him/her?
My supervisor is Robin Cohen. I chose to work with Robin during my PhD studies because we'd worked so well together during my masters degree, and because of her dedication to her students and her work. 

Why did you choose Waterloo for graduate studies? If you did your undergraduate at Waterloo, why did you stay?
I chose Waterloo for graduate studies both because of its reputation, and because it was a good fit for my wife and I to study our passions. 

What sort of research/projects are you working on?
Right now I have three projects on the go. My primary research is on developing systems that can decide elections with only partial information from the voters. On the side, I'm working with Alan Tsang and Hadi Hosseini on electoral systems that can incorporate information about the social relationships between the voters; and with Cecylia Bocovich on a market-based approach to making it harder to censor content online.

What classes are you taking? What has been your favourite class so far?
I'm no longer taking classes, but I think my favourite class was CS886, the seminar AI course, which I took four times over my studies (with different instructors). Each offering was on a different area of AI, but you always get to read really interesting, modern, papers in the area, and to do a deep research project, which can be a great way to explore something a little outside of your focus.