Dr. Yang Cai

Professor

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Biography

Yang Cai is a Professor at Yale Engineering, specializing in Computer Science with additional appointments in Economics. He holds a Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a B.S. from Peking University. Cai's research interests encompass a broad range of topics including Perspectives Theory, Computation, Economics & Computation, Optimization, and Learning. He has received several prestigious awards, including the COLT Paper Award in 2025, the FOCS Test Time Award in 2022, and the NSF CAREER Award in 2020. His work has been featured in high-profile conferences such as the Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS) and the ACM Conference on Economics and Computation (EC). He is recognized for advancing the understanding of treatment effects in machine learning and mechanisms in game theory.

Research Interests

Perspectives Theory Computation Economics & Computation Optimization Learning

Awards

#1

COLT Paper Award

#1

FOCS Test Time Award

#1

NSF CAREER Award

#1

Sloan Research Fellowship

#1

William Dawson Scholar

#1

Simons-Berkeley Research Fellowship

Requirements for Yale University

Doctorate Program
Requirements
GPA Requirement
Required:3.5
GRE General
TOEFL
Listening
Required:25
Speaking
Required:26
Total
Required:100
IELTS
Speaking
Required:7.5
Overall
Required:7
Prerequisites
Bachelor's degree in Engineering, Physics, Chemistry, Computer Science, or Mathematics
Application Checklist
  • Statement of academic purpose
  • Unofficial transcripts
  • Three letters of recommendation
  • Application fee ($105)
  • Resume/CV
Specialization Notes

Administered via the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS). GRE General is optional for PhD.