Summary
I am a postdoctoral researcher currently affiliated with the University of Mons in Belgium. My research focuses on the game-theoretic approach to the synthesis of controllers for reactive systems. My main interests are related to the complexity of strategies in games on graphs and Markov decision processes via different axes, e.g., memory requirements, randomisation and alternative representations of strategies.
My PhD was supervised by Mickael Randour from the Department of Mathematics of the University of Mons (UMONS) and was funded by the F.R.S.-FNRS. I defended my thesis on September 23, 2025; see this page for more details.
Publications
Invited papers in international conferences
- Reachability Games and Friends: A Journey Through the Lens of Memory and Complexity. Thomas Brihaye, Aline Goeminne, James C. A. Main, Mickael Randour. Keynote lecture given by Thomas Brihaye at the 43rd IARCS Annual Conference on Foundations of Software Technology and Theoretical Computer Science (FSTTCS 23), LIPIcs 284, Schloss Dagstuhl, 26 pages, 2023. [DOI]
Peer-reviewed journals
- Different Strokes in Randomised Strategies: Revisiting Kuhn's Theorem under Finite-Memory Assumptions. James C. A. Main, Mickael Randour. Information and Computation, 2024. [DOI][arXiv version]
Peer-reviewed conference proceedings
- Taming Infinity One Chunk at a Time: Concisely Represented Strategies in One-Counter MDPs , Michal Ajdarów, James C. A. Main, Mickael Randour, Petr Novotný. In 52nd International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming, ICALP 2025, LIPIcs 334, Schloss Dagstuhl, 19 pages, 2025. [DOI] [Extended version on arXiv]
- Arena-Independent Memory Bounds for Nash Equilibria in Reachability Games. James C. A. Main. 41st International Symposium on Theoretical Aspects of Computer Science (STACS 2024), LIPIcs 289, Schloss Dagstuhl, 18 pages, 2024. [DOI][Extended version on arXiv]
- Timed Games with Bounded Window Parity Objectives. James C. A. Main, Mickael Randour, Jeremy Sproston. 20th International Conference on Formal Modeling and Analysis of Timed Systems (FORMATS 2022), LNCS 13465, Springer, 17 pages, 2022, [Extended version on arXiv]
- Different Strokes in Randomised Strategies: Revisiting Kuhn's Theorem under Finite-Memory Assumptions. James C. A. Main, Mickael Randour. 33rd International Conference on Concurrency Theory (CONCUR 2022), LIPIcs 243, Schloss Dagstuhl, 18 pages, 2022. [DOI][Extended version on arXiv]
- Time Flies When Looking out of the Window: Timed Games with Window Parity Objectives. James C. A. Main, Mickael Randour, Jeremy Sproston. 32nd International Conference on Concurrency Theory (CONCUR 2021), LIPIcs 203, Schloss Dagstuhl, 16 pages, 2021. [DOI] [Extended version on arXiv]
Preprints
- Mixing Any Cocktail with Limited Ingredients: On the Structure of Payoff Sets in Multi-Objective POMDPs and its Impact on Randomised Strategies , James C. A. Main, Mickael Randour, 2025. [arXiv]
Research experience
Title: Alternative Strategy
Representations in Games.
Supervisor: Mickael Randour (UMONS).
Subject: Extending window objectives to
timed automata and games.
Supervisor: Mickael
Randour (UMONS).
Subject: Efficient algorithms for
parity games with few colors.
Supervisor: Mickael
Randour (UMONS).
Attended events
My talks with slides.-
2025:
- Heidelberg Laureate Forum 2025 (HLF Foundation, Heidelberg, Germany)
- Highlights of Logic, Games and Automata 2025 (Saarland University, Saarbrücken, Germany)
- Autoboz 2025 (Grenaa, Denmark)
- ICALP 2025: 52nd EATCS International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Programming (Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark)
- Storm Days (Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands)
- LAMAS&SR 2024 (Online)
- Journées Annuelles du GT Vérif 2024 (Université de Lille, Lille, France)
- Highlights of Logic, Games and Automata 2024 (Université de Bordeaux, Bordeaux, France)
- Dagstuhl Seminar on Stochastic Games (Dagstuhl, Germany)
- MOVEP'24: 16th school on modelling and verification of parallel processes (IRISA, Rennes, France).
- STACS 2024: 41st International Symposium on Theoretical Aspects of Computer Science (Université Clermont-Auvergne, Clermont-Ferrand, France).
-
2023:
- Journées Annuelles du GT-Vérif 2023, (IRIF, Paris, France).
- LAMAS&SR 2023 (Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland).
-
2022:
- FORMATS 2022: 20th Conference on Formal Modeling and Analysis of Timed Systems (University of Warsaw, Warsaw, Poland).
- CONCUR 2022: The 33rd International Conference on Concurrency Theory (University of Warsaw, Warsaw, Poland).
- Journées Nationales du GT Vérif (Université de Bordeaux, Bordeaux, France)
- Highlights of Logic, Games and Automata 2022 (Université Paris-Cité, Paris, France).
- PhD Day (Belgian Mathematical Society) (Université de Liège, Liège, Belgium).
- Current Trends in Graph and Stochastic Games (GAMENET Workshop) (Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands).
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2021:
- Journées du GT Vérif (ENS Paris-Saclay, Gif-sur-Yvette, France)
- Highlights of Logic, Games and Automata 2021 (Online).
- CONCUR 2021: The 32nd International Conference on Concurrency Theory (Online).
-
2020:
- MOVEP 2020: 14th Summer School on Modelling and Verification of Parallel Processes (Online).
- RDTMA: Regional Days on Model Theory and Applications - 5th edition (Université de Mons, Belgium).
-
2019:
- CONCUR 2019: The 30th International Conference on Concurrency Theory (Amsterdam, Netherlands).