Mengyuan Zhao

Hi! I’m a PhD student in the Division of Information Science and Engineering at KTH in Stockholm, Sweden, supervised by Prof. Tobias J. Oechtering and Prof. Maël Le Treust. Before joining KTH in June 2023, I received an M.Sc. in Applied Mathematics from ETH Zürich.

My research is on the information theory of stochastic decision problems, using tools from probability theory, analysis, and graph theory. Currently, I work on:

deriving fundamental limits and designing coordination-coding schemes for Witsenhausen’s counterexample in distributed decision-making;
extending empirical coordination for joint source-channel coding from discrete memoryless models to Markov models with processing memory.

Outside research, I enjoy playing the piano, tennis, skiing, and water sports.

news

Oct 2026	Our paper Joint Communication and Control: Causal Coordination Coding for Witsenhausen Counterexample is accepted to IEEE Transactions on Information Theory.

publications /

TIT

Joint Communication and Control: Causal Coordination Coding for Witsenhausen Counterexample

Mengyuan Zhao, Tobias J. Oechtering , and Maël Le Treust

IEEE Transactions on Information Theory, 2026

Bib Paper

@article{zhao2025causal,
  title = {Joint Communication and Control: Causal Coordination Coding for Witsenhausen Counterexample},
  author = {Zhao, Mengyuan and Oechtering, Tobias J. and Le Treust, Maël},
  journal = {IEEE Transactions on Information Theory},
  year = {2026},
}

ISIT

Empirical Coordination over Markov Channel with Independent Source

Mengyuan Zhao, Maël Le Treust , and Tobias J. Oechtering

In IEEE International Symposium on Information Theory (ISIT) , 2026

arXiv Bib

@inproceedings{zhao2026empirical,
  title = {Empirical Coordination over Markov Channel with Independent Source},
  author = {Zhao, Mengyuan and Le Treust, Maël and Oechtering, Tobias J.},
  journal = {IEEE International Symposium on Information Theory (ISIT)},
  booktitle = {IEEE International Symposium on Information Theory (ISIT)},
  year = {2026},
}

ISIT

Zero Estimation Cost Strategy for Witsenhausen Counterexample with Causal Encoder

Mengyuan Zhao, Tobias J. Oechtering , and Maël Le Treust

In IEEE International Symposium on Information Theory (ISIT) , 2025

arXiv Bib

@inproceedings{zhao2025zero,
  title = {Zero Estimation Cost Strategy for Witsenhausen Counterexample with Causal Encoder},
  author = {Zhao, Mengyuan and Oechtering, Tobias J. and Le Treust, Maël},
  journal = {IEEE International Symposium on Information Theory (ISIT)},
  booktitle = {IEEE International Symposium on Information Theory (ISIT)},
  year = {2025},
}

ISIT

Coordination Coding with Causal Encoder for Vector-valued Witsenhausen Counterexample

Mengyuan Zhao, Maël Le Treust , and Tobias J. Oechtering

In IEEE International Symposium on Information Theory (ISIT) , 2024

Bib Paper

@inproceedings{zhao2024coordination,
  title = {Coordination Coding with Causal Encoder for Vector-valued Witsenhausen Counterexample},
  author = {Zhao, Mengyuan and Le Treust, Maël and Oechtering, Tobias J.},
  journal = {IEEE International Symposium on Information Theory (ISIT)},
  booktitle = {IEEE International Symposium on Information Theory (ISIT)},
  pages = {3255--3260},
  year = {2024},
}

2026

TIT

Joint Communication and Control: Causal Coordination Coding for Witsenhausen Counterexample

Mengyuan Zhao, Tobias J. Oechtering , and Maël Le Treust

IEEE Transactions on Information Theory, 2026

Bib Paper

@article{zhao2025causal,
  title = {Joint Communication and Control: Causal Coordination Coding for Witsenhausen Counterexample},
  author = {Zhao, Mengyuan and Oechtering, Tobias J. and Le Treust, Maël},
  journal = {IEEE Transactions on Information Theory},
  year = {2026},
}

ISIT

Empirical Coordination over Markov Channel with Independent Source

Mengyuan Zhao, Maël Le Treust , and Tobias J. Oechtering

In IEEE International Symposium on Information Theory (ISIT) , 2026

arXiv Bib

@inproceedings{zhao2026empirical,
  title = {Empirical Coordination over Markov Channel with Independent Source},
  author = {Zhao, Mengyuan and Le Treust, Maël and Oechtering, Tobias J.},
  journal = {IEEE International Symposium on Information Theory (ISIT)},
  booktitle = {IEEE International Symposium on Information Theory (ISIT)},
  year = {2026},
}

2025

CDC

Low-Power Optimal Strategy for Witsenhausen Counterexample

Mengyuan Zhao, Maël Le Treust , and Tobias J. Oechtering

In IEEE 64th Conference on Decision and Control (CDC) , 2025

arXiv Bib

@inproceedings{zhao2025lowpower,
  title = {Low-Power Optimal Strategy for Witsenhausen Counterexample},
  author = {Zhao, Mengyuan and Le Treust, Maël and Oechtering, Tobias J.},
  journal = {IEEE Conference on Decision and Control (CDC)},
  booktitle = {IEEE 64th Conference on Decision and Control (CDC)},
  pages = {4503--4509},
  year = {2025},
}

ISIT

Zero Estimation Cost Strategy for Witsenhausen Counterexample with Causal Encoder

Mengyuan Zhao, Tobias J. Oechtering , and Maël Le Treust

In IEEE International Symposium on Information Theory (ISIT) , 2025

arXiv Bib

@inproceedings{zhao2025zero,
  title = {Zero Estimation Cost Strategy for Witsenhausen Counterexample with Causal Encoder},
  author = {Zhao, Mengyuan and Oechtering, Tobias J. and Le Treust, Maël},
  journal = {IEEE International Symposium on Information Theory (ISIT)},
  booktitle = {IEEE International Symposium on Information Theory (ISIT)},
  year = {2025},
}

2024

ISIT

Coordination Coding with Causal Encoder for Vector-valued Witsenhausen Counterexample

Mengyuan Zhao, Maël Le Treust , and Tobias J. Oechtering

In IEEE International Symposium on Information Theory (ISIT) , 2024

Bib Paper

@inproceedings{zhao2024coordination,
  title = {Coordination Coding with Causal Encoder for Vector-valued Witsenhausen Counterexample},
  author = {Zhao, Mengyuan and Le Treust, Maël and Oechtering, Tobias J.},
  journal = {IEEE International Symposium on Information Theory (ISIT)},
  booktitle = {IEEE International Symposium on Information Theory (ISIT)},
  pages = {3255--3260},
  year = {2024},
}

CDC

Optimal Gaussian Strategies for Vector-valued Witsenhausen Counterexample with Non-causal State Estimator

Mengyuan Zhao, Tobias J. Oechtering , and Maël Le Treust

In IEEE 63rd Conference on Decision and Control (CDC) , 2024

arXiv Bib

@inproceedings{zhao2024optimal,
  title = {Optimal Gaussian Strategies for Vector-valued Witsenhausen Counterexample with Non-causal State Estimator},
  author = {Zhao, Mengyuan and Oechtering, Tobias J. and Le Treust, Maël},
  journal = {IEEE Conference on Decision and Control (CDC)},
  booktitle = {IEEE 63rd Conference on Decision and Control (CDC)},
  pages = {8447--8452},
  year = {2024},
}

ITW

Causal Vector-valued Witsenhausen Counterexamples with Feedback

Mengyuan Zhao, Maël Le Treust , and Tobias J. Oechtering

In IEEE Information Theory Workshop (ITW) , 2024

arXiv Bib

@inproceedings{zhao2024feedback,
  title = {Causal Vector-valued Witsenhausen Counterexamples with Feedback},
  author = {Zhao, Mengyuan and Le Treust, Maël and Oechtering, Tobias J.},
  journal = {IEEE Information Theory Workshop (ITW)},
  booktitle = {IEEE Information Theory Workshop (ITW)},
  pages = {687--692},
  year = {2024},
}

ICASSP

NUV-DoA: NUV Prior-based Bayesian Sparse Reconstruction with Spatial Filtering for Super-Resolution DoA Estimation

Mengyuan Zhao, Guy Revach , Tirza Routtenberg , and Nir Shlezinger

In IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing (ICASSP) , 2024

arXiv Bib

@inproceedings{zhao2024nuvdoa,
  title = {NUV-DoA: NUV Prior-based Bayesian Sparse Reconstruction with Spatial Filtering for Super-Resolution DoA Estimation},
  author = {Zhao, Mengyuan and Revach, Guy and Routtenberg, Tirza and Shlezinger, Nir},
  journal = {IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing (ICASSP)},
  booktitle = {IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing (ICASSP)},
  year = {2024},
}

preprints

Preprint

Empirical Coordination for Controlled Markov Processes with Strictly Causal Encoder

Mengyuan Zhao, Tobias J. Oechtering , and Maël Le Treust

Preprint, 2026

Bib PDF

@article{zhao2026controlled,
  title = {Empirical Coordination for Controlled Markov Processes with Strictly Causal Encoder},
  author = {Zhao, Mengyuan and Oechtering, Tobias J. and Le Treust, Maël},
  journal = {Preprint},
  year = {2026},
}

academic services

Paper review	Reviewer for ISIT, CDC, and ACC
Teaching	Optimal Filtering (2024, 2026) Information Theory (2025) Estimation Theory (2025) Matrix Algebra (2026)
Session chair	CDC 2024, Milan, Italy
Talks	Invited seminar at Univ. Rennes, CNRS, Inria/IRISA, Rennes, France (May 2025)

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