Mustapha Abdullahi

"Whoever strives shall succeed."

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Espoo, Finland

I am a doctoral researcher with the Aalto Data Intensive Systems group at the Department of Computer Science, Aalto University. I am fortunate to be advised by Prof. Bo Zhao. I am funded by the Finland Fellowship and the Finnish Center of Artificial Intelligence (FCAI). My research interests span scalable reinforcement learning (RL) systems and efficient training of large language models (LLMs).

Previously, I completed my MSc in AI at the Queen Mary University of London, sponsored by Google DeepMind and QuantumBlack (McKinsey) & Office of AI. I received my B.Eng. in Computer Engineering from Ahmadu Bello University. I worked as a Software Engineering Intern at QuantumBlack AI Labs (McKinsey & Company).

I am open to learning and collaborating on any exciting project :)

News

Jul 04, 2024 Excited and thankful to be selected for the Finnish Doctoral Program Network in Artificial Intelligence (AI-DOC) funded by Finnish Center of Artificial Intelligence (FCAI).
Feb 12, 2024 Super stoked and grateful to have received the Finland Fellowship to fund my 1st year of PhD in Computer Science at Aalto University.
Oct 02, 2023 Thrilled and grateful to be starting a role as Software Engineer Intern at QuantumBlack Labs (McKinsey & Company).
Apr 20, 2023 Delighted to be selected to attend the Mediterranean Machine Learning Summer School (MLSS 2023) in Thessaloniki, Greece.
Apr 14, 2023 Super excited to be accepted to the Reinforcement Learning Summer School (RLSS 2023) in Barcelona, Spain.
Mar 29, 2023 Thrilled and grateful to be accepted to The Cornell, Maryland, Max Planck Pre-doctoral Research School (CMMRS) 2023 in Saarbrücken, Germany.
Dec 09, 2022 Excited to be one of the awardees of the Best Graduating Engineering Student Awards by the Nigerian Society of Engineers.
Dec 01, 2022 Very honoured to be among the 14 finalists of Rhodes Scholarship, West Africa
Aug 15, 2022 Super excited to be one of the recipients of the Google DeepMind Scholarship to study a Master’s in AI at the School of Electronics Engineering and Computer Science, Queen Mary University of London.

Selected Publications

  1. SAA’25
    EARL: Efficient Agentic Reinforcement Learning Systems for Large Language Models
    Zheyue Tan, Mustapha Abdullahi, Tuo Shi, and 5 more authors
    Workshop on Systems for Agentic AI (SAA), in conjunction with the ACM Symposium on Operating Systems Principles (SOSP), Oct 2025
  2. DLI’25
    Evaluating Deep Learning Models for African Wildlife Image Classification: From DenseNet to Vision Transformers
    Lukman Jibril Aliyu, Umar Sani Muhammad, Bilqisu Ismail, and 5 more authors
    Deep Learning Indaba, Jul 2025
  3. JAIMLD’24
    Beyond traditional assessment: Exploring the impact of large language models on grading practices
    Oluwole Fagbohun, Nwaamaka Pearl Iduwe, Mustapha Abdullahi, and 2 more authors
    Journal of Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Data Science, Feb 2024