Davin Choo

Postdoctoral Fellow @ Teamcore, Harvard SEAS
Young NUS Fellow
Incoming tenure-track Assistant Professor (Jan 2027) @ National University of Singapore (NUS)

My research centers on developing principled AI and algorithmic solutions for use-inspired, impact-driven problems, organized around three synergistic thrusts that advance both foundations and real-world impact.

• RT1 (Foundational AI/ML): Here, I mainly tackle problems in statistical machine learning and causal inference. I also have some works on clustering, SAT solving, and improving computational subtasks in modern ML pipelines.
• RT2 (Algorithms with imperfect advice): Here, I design methods that leverage imperfect, instance-specific information to overcome generic worst-case hardness barriers. As part of my PhD, I developed the Test-and-Act framework for designing such learning-augmented algorithms.
• RT3 (AI+X): Here, I work with domain experts beyond Computer Science to principally model and improve real-world processes.

If you have challenging real-world problems, I'd love to hear about them!

[Announcement] I will be joining the Computer Science department of NUS in Jan 2027, where I will set up taro lab (Theory and AI for Real-world Optimization). I'm recruiting highly motivated PhD, Masters, and Undergrad students; it is okay if you have no prior research background as long as you are willing to learn and work hard. If you would like to work with me, please fill in this Google form to get in touch. For prospective PhD students applying to NUS School of Computing (Jan 2027 intake), the application deadline is June 15, 2026: see details here. Note: If you are interested in doing pure LLM or agentic AI research, I may not be the best fit.

Short bio (for talks, etc): Davin is a postdoctoral fellow at Teamcore in Harvard University, and an incoming tenure-track Assistant Professor at School of Computing in National University of Singapore (NUS). His research focuses on theory and AI for real-world optimization, and he has a technical background in foundational areas of AI/ML, including statistical learning, causal inference, and the design of resource-efficient algorithms. He earned his PhD in Computer Science from the NUS as an AISG PhD fellow, a Master's degree in Computer Science from ETH Zürich, and two undergraduate degrees in Computer Science (First Class Honors) and Applied Mathematics (First Class Honors) from NUS. Between his undergraduate and Masters, he also worked for a while as an applied research scientist at DSO National Laboratories on projects that lie in the intersection of AI and security.

Email

davinchoo [at] seas.harvard.edu

Links

To learn more about me, see here.