Borna Khodabandeh

Hi! I am Borna Khodabandeh, a PhD student in the StatML CDT at the University of Oxford. I received my B.Sc. in Electrical Engineering with a minor in Physics from Sharif University of Technology. In a previous life, I also competed in the International Physics Olympiad (IPhO), winning a Silver Medal.

My research is broadly in statistical machine learning, with a particular focus on generative modelling, especially vector-field-based models such as diffusion and flow models. More broadly, I am interested in the mathematical and statistical foundations of learning systems, adversarial robustness, and optimization.

Feel free to reach out if you’d like to collaborate or just chat!

Research Interests

• Probabilistic machine learning
• Generative modelling, diffusion and flow models
• Adversarial robustness and alignment
• Information theory and statistical learning
• Reinforcement learning
• Geometry-aware learning

News

• 2026-09-01: Starting PhD in the StatML CDT at the University of Oxford
• 2025-09-18: LORE accepted to NeurIPS 2025
• 2025-05-24: Released preprint on LORE (arXiv)
• 2025-01-22: Optimizing Contrastive Learning Models via Preference Optimization accepted to ICLR 2025
• 2024-11-12: Released preprint on Optimizing Contrastive Learning Models via Preference Optimization (arXiv)
• 2024-10-01: Completed EPFL E3 internship with Prof. Michael Unser