I am currently a doctoral candidate in the Aerospace Engineering Department at University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign. I am advised by Prof. Cedric Langbort. I am a research assistant in Coordinated Science Laboratory. Prior to my time at UIUC, I completed my undergraduate education in the Aerospace Engineering Department at IIT Bombay.
My research studies how information shapes decision making in strategic environments. Modern socio-technical systems—such as electricity markets, navigation platforms, and human–AI systems—often involve agents whose behavior depends not only on their incentives but also on the information they receive. My work seeks to understand how such information can be structured to influence behavior and improve system outcomes.
I approach these questions using tools from game theory, online learning, and control theory. Broadly, my research falls into three related directions: applying the information design framework to real-world strategic systems, developing learning algorithms that allow agents to adapt their communication strategies when receiver preferences are unknown, and studying learning dynamics in control settings where strategic interactions arise through repeated decision making.
Feel free to reach out to me at vhebbar2@illinois.edu.