Cong Shen

Picture of Cong Shen 

Associate Professor
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
University of Virginia

Office: E-317 Thornton Hall
Mail: 351 McCormick Road, P.O. Box 400743, Charlottesville, VA 22904
Phone: (434) 924-8940
Email: cong at virginia dot edu

Google Scholar Profile

I am an Associate Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering of University of Virginia. I am also a member of the UVA Link Lab. I got my B.S. and M.S. from Tsinghua University, and Ph.D. from UCLA. I received the NSF CAREER award in 2022.

My research interests span a number of interdisciplinary topics in machine learning, wireless communications, and networking. Some of my current research topics are:

  • AI/ML for wireless

  • In-context learning and Transformers

  • Distributed and decentralized learning

  • Multi-armed bandits, reinforcement learning, and their engineering applications

News

  • Sept. 2025: PhD student Zihan Chen received the McVey Fellowship, and PhD student Wei Shen received the Wilson Bicentennial Grad Fellowship. Congratulations!

  • Sept. 2025: Two papers accepted to NeurIPS 2025. Topics include bilevel optimization and RLHF. See publication for details.

  • Aug. 2025: Area Chair for AISTATS 2026 and ICLR 2026.

  • Aug. 2025: Lead organizer for AI4NextG Workshop @ NeurIPS’25. Submission deadline: August 29, 2025. Check our website for more details.

  • May 2025: I started the role of Deputy Director of Collaboration at SpectrumX.

  • May 2025: Two papers accepted to ICML 2025. Topics include in-context learning and transformers. See publication for details.

archived news