My main research is in artificial intelligence, although I also have interests in robotics, operations research, information visualization, and cognitive science. Very broadly, my goal is to understand how to build autonomous systems - for example, how a robot should decide what to do next. I'm also interested in decision support systems and in natural examples of cognition, such as humans. My current focus is on methods for heuristic search and planning, especially those that can be useful in robotics. In particular, I am interested in solving problems quickly (rational time-bounded decision-making) and in how on-line learning can inform optimization algorithms. I also enjoy experimental algorithmics.
Courses Taught
- CS 730/830: Intro Artificial Intelligence
- CS 758/858: Algorithms
- CS 800: Internship
- CS 931: Planning for Robots
- CS 999: Doctoral Research
Research Interests
- Artificial Intelligence/Cybernetics
- Operations Research
- Optimization
- Robotics
Selected Publications
Miller, B. A., Shafi, Z., Ruml, W., Vorobeychik, Y., Eliassi-Rad, T., & Alfeld, S. (2024). Attacking Shortest Paths by Cutting Edges. ACM Transactions on Knowledge Discovery from Data, 18(2), 1-42. doi:10.1145/3622941
Zhang, N., Alden, D., Xu, D., Wang, S., Jaeger, T., & Ruml, W. (2023). No Free Lunch: On the Increased Code Reuse Attack Surface of Obfuscated Programs. In 2023 53rd Annual IEEE/IFIP International Conference on Dependable Systems and Networks (DSN) (pp. 313-326). IEEE. doi:10.1109/dsn58367.2023.00039
Lemons, S., Linares López, C., Holte, R. C., & Ruml, W. (n.d.). Beam Search: Faster and Monotonic. Proceedings of the International Conference on Automated Planning and Scheduling, 32, 222-230. doi:10.1609/icaps.v32i1.19805
Lemons, S., López, C. L., Holte, R. C., & Ruml, W. (2022). Beam Search: Faster and Monotonic. Retrieved from http://arxiv.org/abs/2204.02929v1
Miller, B. A., Shafi, Z., Ruml, W., Vorobeychik, Y., Eliassi-Rad, T., & Alfeld, S. (2021). Optimal Edge Weight Perturbations to Attack Shortest Paths. Retrieved from http://arxiv.org/abs/2107.03347v1
Shang, Y., Ruml, W., Zhang, Y., & Fromherz, M. (2004). Localization from connectivity in sensor networks. IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON PARALLEL AND DISTRIBUTED SYSTEMS, 15(11), 961-974. doi:10.1109/TPDS.2004.67
Shang, Y., Ruml, W., & IEEE. (2004). Improved MDS-based localization. In IEEE INFOCOM 2004: THE CONFERENCE ON COMPUTER COMMUNICATIONS, VOLS 1-4, PROCEEDINGS (pp. 2640-2651). Retrieved from https://www.webofscience.com/
Caramazza, A., Papagno, C., & Ruml, W. (2000). The selective impairment of phonological processing in speech production. BRAIN AND LANGUAGE, 75(3), 428-450. doi:10.1006/brln.2000.2379
Ruml, W., Caramazza, A., Shelton, J. R., & Chialant, D. (2000). Testing assumptions in computational theories of aphasia. JOURNAL OF MEMORY AND LANGUAGE, 43(2), 217-248. doi:10.1006/jmla.2000.2730
Ruml, W., & Caramazza, A. (2000). An evaluation of a computational model of lexical access: Comment on Dell et al. (1997). PSYCHOLOGICAL REVIEW, 107(3), 609-634. doi:10.1037/0033-295X.107.3.609