Hamed Mahdavi

Pennsylvania State University, State College, PA

hmm5834 at psu.edu

I am Hamed Mahdavi, a computer science Ph.D. student at Pennsylvania State University. For more information, you can check my CV here.

Work Experience

Collaborator, Gemini IMO 2025 Project

Google
  • Provided high-quality, verifiable data and evaluations to the Gemini Data team under the supervision of Dr. Vahab Mirrokni, resulting in a gold medal at the International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO).
Summer 2025

Research Assistant

Pennsylvania State University - State College, PA
  • Designed agentic workflows for math problem solving and data generation; led evaluations of LLM mathematical reasoning; developed GNN models for interatomic potentials in materials science.
Jan 2022 - Present

Data Scientist Intern

Arconic Technology Center - New Kensington, PA
  • Worked in the Fabrication Technology group under the supervision of Martin Marinack; tackled several data-driven optimization problems to improve Arconic's fabrication processes (welding, rolling, and casting).
Jun 2023 - Aug 2023

Research Intern

Max Planck Institute for Software Systems - Saarbrücken, Germany
  • Worked on fundamental aspects of reinforcement learning, focusing on multi-agent, adversarial, and human-centered reinforcement learning.
  • Studied how to design an AI agent that can robustly cooperate with agents of unknown types. The project was inspired by real-world applications in which an AI agent, e.g., a virtual assistant, must cooperate with new agent types/users after deployment.
Aug 2018 - Jan 2019

Software Engineering Intern

Faragostar - Tehran, Iran
  • Developed a compression algorithm that allowed Faragostar to retain its official documentation while minimizing storage requirements.
  • Configured infrastructure for Elasticsearch, enabling more efficient and complex searches in the company's app compared to the previous SQL-based search tool.
Jul 2017 - Sep 2017

Mathematical Olympiad Teacher

Allameh Helli High School - Tehran, Iran
  • Taught number theory to academically gifted students at Allameh Helli High School.
Oct 2012 - Apr 2013

Selected Publications

  • RefGrader: Automated Grading of Mathematical Competition Proofs using Agentic Workflows
    H. Mahdavi, A. Hashemi, M. Daliri, P. Mohammadipour, A. Farhadi, S. Malek, Y. Yazdanifard, N. Mireshghallah, A Khasahmadi, V. Honavar
    Draft, 2025
  • CombiGraph-Vis: A Multimodal Olympiad Benchmark for Discrete Mathematical Reasoning
    H. Mahdavi, A. Hashemi, M. Daliri, P. Mohammadipour, A. Farhadi, S. Malek, Y. Yazdanifard, A Khasahmadi, V. Honavar
    Draft, 2025
  • Harnessing Optimization Dynamics for Curvature-Informed Model Merging
    P. Mahdavinia, H. Mahdavi, N. Mireshghallah, M. Mahdavi
    Draft, 2025
  • Brains vs. bytes: Evaluating LLM Proficiency In Olympiad Mathematics
    H. Mahdavi, A. Hashemi, M. Daliri, P. Mohammadipour, A. Farhadi, S. Malek, Y. Yazdanifard, A Khasahmadi, V. Honavar
    COLM Conference, 2025
  • Beyond Training Data: How Elemental Features Enhance ML-Based Formation Energy Predictions
    H. Mahdavi, V. Honavar, D. Morgan
    Digital Discovery, 2025
  • Towards deployment of robust cooperative AI agents: An algorithmic framework for learning adaptive policies
    A. Ghosh, S. Tschiatschek, H. Mahdavi, A. Singla
    AAMAS Conference, 2020

Education

Pennsylvania State University

Ph.D. Student
Computer Science and Engineering
January 2022 - Present

Sharif University of Technology

Master of Science
Computer Engineering - Artificial Intelligence
September 2017 - January 2021

Sharif University of Technology

Bachelor of Science
Software Engineering
September 2012 - August 2017

Interests

My interests include but not limited to:

  • LLMs for Math Problem Solving
  • AI Agents for Synthetic Data Generation
  • Reasoning in LLMs
  • Reinforcement Learning
  • Optimization in Machine Learning

In general, I'm interested in applied machine learning fields where it's essential to lay a solid theoretical foundation alongside practical application

Besides my interest in science, I also enjoy playing tennis, and badminton, which I've been doing since I was 9 years old. I like playing guitar too, both acoustic and electric, and I usually go for classic rock songs.