Curriculum vitae

Appointments

• 2025–present
  Senior Lecturer (Assistant Professor), tenure track
  Stein Faculty of Computer and Information Science, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
• 2022–present
  Senior Lecturer (Assistant Professor), tenure track
  Department of Software and Information Systems Engineering, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

  Lecturer 2022–2025, Senior Lecturer since 2025.
• 2021–2022
  Postdoctoral Fellow
  Department of Computer Science, The University of Texas at Austin

  Learning Agents Research Group, with Prof. Peter Stone.
• 2015–2021
  Lecturer and Teaching Assistant
  Department of Computer Science, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
• 2014–2015
  Software Developer
  Applied Materials, Israel

  Algorithm and infrastructure development.
• 2009–2013
  Team Leader
  Israel Defense Forces

  Led a team of 5–8 on planning and unit allocation analysis.

Education

• 2017–2021
  Ph.D., Computer Science
  Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

  Dissertation: “Meta-level Techniques for Planning, Search, and Scheduling.” Advisor: Prof. Solomon Eyal Shimony.
• 2016–2017
  M.Sc., Computer Science
  Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

  Direct M.Sc. track, summa cum laude (first in class). Thesis: “Approximate Optimization of Non-myopic Value of Information and Applications.” Advisor: Prof. Solomon Eyal Shimony.
• 2012–2016
  B.Sc., Software Engineering
  Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

  Summa cum laude, first in class.

Research grants

• 2023–2027
  Bidirectional Heuristic Search Under Various Time Constraints
  Israel Science Foundation (ISF)

  with Ariel Felner and Eyal Shimony
• 2024–2027
  Scalable Learning in Heuristic Search
  NSF-BSF

  with Forest Agostinelli
• 2023–2026
  Safe and Robust LLMs: Integrating Safe RL and Adversarial RL for Responsible AI
  Israel Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST)

  with Ayal Taitler
• 2023–2026
  Enhancing Decision-Making in Autonomous Driving through Optimized Action Space, Advanced State Prediction, and Domain Knowledge Integration
  Israel Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST)

  sole PI
• 2024–2026
  Multi-Agent Task Allocation for Communication-Less Heterogeneous Agents Operating Under Uncertainty
  MAFAT

  sole PI
• 2024–2025
  Trajectory Planning Under Regional and Temporal Constraints With Non-Linear Dynamics
  ABC Robotics Initiative

  with Ayal Taitler

Academic service

Conference organization

• Co-program chair, ICAPS 2027
• Co-conference chair, SoCS 2026
• Co-chair, PRL 2026 (ICAPS and IJCAI)
• Area chair, ICAPS 2025
• Co-doctoral consortium chair, SoCS 2024

Program committees

• Senior PC: IJCAI 2025, AAMAS 2026, WWW 2026
• PC: AAAI 2021, 2023, 2025, 2026
• PC: IJCAI 2022, 2023, 2024, 2026
• PC: ICAPS 2023, 2024, 2026
• PC: SoCS 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025
• PC: AAMAS 2025

Reviewing for journals and funding agencies

• Artificial Intelligence Journal (AIJ)
• Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research (JAIR)
• Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems (JAAMAS)
• IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters (RA-L)
• IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems
• Journal of Intelligence
• WIREs Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery
• Israel Science Foundation (ISF) and Israel Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST)

University and community

• Chair of the teaching committee, Software Engineering program (years 3–4), BGU, 2025–present
• Member of the faculty recruitment committee, Stein Faculty of Computer and Information Science, 2025–present
• Organizer of the department seminar, Software and Information Systems Engineering, 2022–2025
• Audit committee member, Israeli Association for Artificial Intelligence (IAAI), 2022–present

Awards and honors

• 2026 Distinguished Senior Program Committee member, AAMAS 2026
• 2024 Rector's Glatt Award for excellence in teaching, Ben-Gurion University
• 2024 Best Reviewer Award, International Symposium on Combinatorial Search (SoCS)
• 2022 Distinguished PC member (top 3%), IJCAI 2022
• 2021 Award for excellence in teaching, Department of Computer Science, Ben-Gurion University
• 2020 Rector's award for excellence in study and research (Ph.D.), Ben-Gurion University
• 2019 Friedman Prize for outstanding achievements in research (Ph.D.)
• 2019 Best Paper Award, International Symposium on Combinatorial Search (SoCS)
• 2017 Zabey Award for an excellent master's thesis in physics, computer science, and mathematics, Ben-Gurion University
• 2017 Friedman Prize for outstanding achievements in research (M.Sc.)
• 2016 Rector's award for excellence in study (B.Sc.); Faculty of Natural Sciences award for excellence in study and research (M.Sc.)
• 2016 First place, HackIDC, Israel's leading student hackathon
• 2015 First place, Innovate2Educate hackathon on innovation in education
• 2013 IDF Ground Forces chief (Major General) award of excellence

Fellowships

• 2021 Postdoctoral fellowship, The University of Texas at Austin
• 2021 Rector's fellowship for abroad postdoctoral research, Ben-Gurion University
• 2017–2021 Negev scholarship for Ph.D. students, Ben-Gurion University

Invited talks and seminars

• 2024 Combining learning in search and planning for better autonomous decision making; Industrial Engineering seminar, Ariel University
• 2024 New faculty spotlight; Israeli Association for Artificial Intelligence (IAAI) conference
• 2023 On the gap between search and reinforcement learning; Planning research group, Technion
• 2023 Invited talk, Meta-Reasoning Workshop
• 2021 Metareasoning techniques for planning, search and scheduling; UT Austin, Technion, and Ben-Gurion University
• 2021 Game tree search using batch value of perfect information; University of New Hampshire

Teaching and advising