Yu Yang obtained his Ph.D. in Computing Science from Simon Fraser University in Feb. 2019. Before that, he obtained his M.E. from University of Science and Technology of China in 2013, and his B.E. from Hefei University of Technology in 2010, both in Computer Science.
His research interests lie in the algorithmic aspects of data science, with an emphasis on devising effective and efficient algorithmic tools for mining data of combinatorial structures (such as graphs, sets and sequences) and data-driven operations management. He also has strong interests in machine learning theory, especially in applying learning theory to accelerate data processing.
Awards and Achievements
- 2019 “Governor General's Gold Medal” The Governor General of Canada.
- 2022 “Silver Award” Geneva International Exhibition of Inventions.
Journal
- Wang, Jun. , Yang, Yu. , Liu, Qi. , Fang, Zheng. , Sun, Shujuan. & Xu, Yabo. (in press). An Empirical Study of User Engagement in Influencer Marketing on Weibo and WeChat. IEEE Transactions on Computational Social Systems.
- Zhang, Hongbin. , Yang, Yu. & Wu, Feng. (Apr 2022). Just-in-time single-batch-processing machine scheduling. Computers & Operations Research. Volume 140. 105675 doi:10.1016/j.cor.2021.105675
- Hu, Yang. , Wu, Feng. , Yang, Yu. & Liu, Yongkui. (Apr 2022). Tackling temporal-dynamic service composition in cloud manufacturing systems: A tensor factorization-based two-stage approach. Journal of Manufacturing Systems. Volume 63. 593 - 608. doi:10.1016/j.jmsy.2022.05.008
- Hu, Yang. , Wu, Feng. , Yang, Yu. & Wu, Yongkui. (Apr 2022). Tackling temporal-dynamic service composition in cloud manufacturing systems: A tensor factorization-based two-stage approach. Journal of Manufacturing Systems. 63. 593 - 608. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jmsy.2022.05.008
- Yang, Yu. & Pei, Jian. (2021). Influence Analysis in Evolving Networks: A Survey. IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering. Volume: 33, Issue: 3. 1045 - 1063. doi:10.1109/TKDE.2019.2934447
- Yang, Yu. , Mao, Xiangbo. , Pei, Jian. & He, Xiaofei. (May 2020). Continuous Influence Maximization. ACM Transactions on Knowledge Discovery from Data. Volume 14, No. 3, Article 29 (May 2020). 1 - 38. doi:10.1145/3380928
- Zhu, Xiang. , Wang, Zhefeng. , Yang, Yu. , Bin, Zhou. & Yan, Jia. (2018). Influence efficiency maximization: How can we spread information efficiently?. Journal of Computational Science. 28. 245 - 256. doi:10.1016/j.jocs.2017.11.001
- Yang, Yu. , Wang, Zhefeng (joint first author). , Chu, Lingyang. , Pei, Jian. & Chen, Enhong. (2017). Activity Maximization by Effective Information Diffusion in Social Networks. IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering. Volume 29, Issue 11. 2374 - 2387. doi:10.1109/TKDE.2017.2740284
- Liu, Qi. , Xiang, Biao. , Yuan, Nicholas. Jing. , Chen, Enhong. , Xiong, Hui. , Zheng, Yi. & Yang, Yu. (2017). An Influence Propagation View of PageRank. ACM Transactions on Knowledge Discovery from Data. Volume 11, Issue 3. - Article No. 30. doi:10.1145/3046941
- Yang, Yu. , Pei, Jian. & Al-Barakati, Abdullah. (2017). Measuring In-Network Node Similarity Based on Neighborhoods: A Unified Parametric Approach. Knowledge and Information Systems. Volume 53, Issue 1. 43 - 70. doi:10.1007/s10115-017-1033-5
- Yang, Yu. , Wang, Zhefeng. , Pei, Jian. & Chen, Enhong. (2017). Tracking Influential Individuals in Dynamic Networks. IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering. Volume 29, Issue 11. 2615 - 2628. doi:10.1109/TKDE.2017.2734667
Conference Paper
- Zhan, Qixin. , Ye, Wenbing. , Chen, Zaiyi. , Hu, Haoyuan. , Chen, Enhong. & Yang, Yu. (in press). Nearly Optimal Competitive Ratio for Online Allocation Problems with Two-sided Resource Constraints and Finite Requests. the 40th International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML'2023).
- Zhang, Qixin. , Deng, Zengde. , Chen, Zaiyi. , Zhou, Kuangqi. , Hu, Haoyuan. & Yang, Yu. (Apr 2023). Online Learning for Non-monotone DR-Submodular Maximization: From FullInformation to Bandit Feedback. In Proceedings of the 25th International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Statistics (AISTATS'2023). PMLR 206. (pp. 3515 - 3537). València. Spain: .
- Tang, Longtao. , Zhou, Ying. & Yang, Yu. (Dec 2022). Sequence-to-Set Generative Models. In Proceedings of the Thirty-Sixth Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS'2022)).
- Zhang, Qixin. , Deng, Zengde. , Chen, Zaiyi. , Hu, Haoyuan. & Yang, Yu. (Jul 2022). Stochastic Continuous Submodular Maximization: Boosting via Non-oblivious Function. In Proceedings of the 39th International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML'22). PMLR 162. (pp. 26116 - 26134). Baltimore MD. USA: .
- Wu, Tongwen. , Yang, Yu. , Li, Yanzhi. , Mao, Huiqiang. , Li, Liming. , Wang, Xiaoqing. & Deng, Yuming. (Aug 2021). Representation Learning for Predicting Customer Orders. In Proceedings of the 27th ACM SIGKDD Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining (KDD'21). (pp. 3735 - 3744). Singapore. Singapore: .
- Jin, Tianyuan. , Yang, Yu. , Yang, Renchi. , Shi, Jieming. , Huang, Keke. & Xiao, Xiaokui. (Jun 2021). Unconstrained Submodular Maximization with Modular Costs: Tight Approximation and Application to Profit Maximization. In Proceedings of the 47th International Conference on Very Large Data Bases (VLDB'21). (pp. 1756 - 1768). Copenhagen. Denmark: .
- Cong, Zicun. , Chu, Lingyang. , Yang, Yu. & Pei, Jian. (2021). Comprehensible Counterfactual Explanation on Kolmogorov-Smirnov Test. In Proceedings of the 47th International Conference on Very Large Data Bases (VLDB'21). (pp. 1583 - 1596). Copenhagen. Denmark: .
- Chu, Lingyang. , Zhang, Yanyan. , Yang, Yu. , Wang, Lanjun. & Pei, Jian. (2020). Online Density Bursting Subgraph Detection from Temporal Graphs. In Proceedings of the 46th International Conference on Very Large Data Bases (VLDB’20). (pp. 2353 - 2365). Tokyo. Japan: .
- Chu, Lingyang. , Wang, Zhefeng. , Pei, Jian. , Zhang, Yanyan. , Yang, Yu. & Chen, Enhong. (2019). Finding Theme Communities from Database Networks. In Proceedings of the 45th International Conference on Very Large Data Bases (VLDB’19). (pp. 1071 - 1084). Los Angeles. USA: .
- Yang, Yu. , Wang, Zhefeng. , Jin, Tianyuan. , Pei, Jian. & Chen, Enhong. (2019). Tracking Top-k Influential Users with Relative Errors. In Proceedings of the 28th ACM International Conference on Information and Knowledge Management (CIKM'19). (pp. 1783 - 1792). Beijing. China: .
- Yang, Yu. , Chu, Lingyang. , Zhang, Yanyan. , Wang, Zhefeng. , Pei, Jian. & Chen, Enhong. (2018). Mining Density Contrast Subgraphs. In Proceedings of the 34th IEEE International Conference on Data Engineering (ICDE'18). (pp. 221 - 232). Paris. France: doi:10.1109/ICDE.2018.00029
- Yang, Yu. , Mao, Xiangbo. , Pei, Jian. & He, Xiaofei. (2016). Continuous Influence Maximization: What Discounts Should We Offer to Social Network Users?. In Proceedings of the 2016 ACM SIGMOD International Conference on Management of Data (SIGMOD'16). (pp. 727 - 741). San Francisco. USA: doi:10.1145/2882903.2882961
- Wang, Zhefeng. , Chen, Enhong. , Liu, Qi. , Yang, Yu. , Ge, Yong. & Chang, Biao. (2015). Maximizing the Coverage of Information Propagation in Social Networks. In Proceedings of the 24th International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI'15). (pp. 2104 - 2110). Buenos Aires. Argentina: .
- Xiang, Biao. , Liu, Qi. , Chen, Enhong. , Xiong, Hui. , Zheng, Yi. & Yang, Yu. (2013). PageRank with Priors: An Influence Propagation Perspective. In Proceedings of the 23rd International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI'13). (pp. 2740 - 2746). Beijing. China: .
- Yang, Yu. , Chen, Enhong. , Liu, Qi. , Xiang, Biao. , Xu, Tong. & Shad, Shafqat. Ali. (2012). On Approximation of Real-World Influence Spread. In Proceedings of the 2012 European Conference on Machine Learning and Principles and Practice of Knowledge Discovery in Databases (ECML-PKDD'12). (pp. 548 - 564). Bristol. UK: doi:10.1007/978-3-642-33486-3_35
Academic Services
- PC Member for top data science conferences
• 2018: KDD
• 2019: KDD
• 2020: SIGIR, KDD
• 2021: VLDB, KDD
• 2022: SIGMOD, KDD, NeurIPS
• 2023: VLDB, KDD, NeurIPS
Journal Reviewer for
• IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering (TKDE)
• ACM Transactions on Knowledge Discovery from Data (TKDD)
• Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery (DMKD)
• Knowledge and Information Systems (KAIS)
• INFORMS Journal on Computing (JOC)
Algorithmic Data Science Group & Openings
- I am fortunate to work with a group of talented Ph.D. students and Research Assistants to solve challenging and crucial algorithmic problems in data science:
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Mr. Yang HU (joint Ph.D. student with XJTU, 2021.9-present, BS from Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics)
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Mr. Yuan LI (Ph.D. student, 2022.9-present, BS from Central South University)
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Mr. Longtao TANG (Ph.D. student, 2020.9-present, BS from University of Science and Technology of China)
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Mr. Jun WANG (Ph.D. student, 2020.9-present, MS and BS from University of Science and Technology of China)
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Mr. Yifan YANG (joint Ph.D. student with USTC, 2022.9-present, BS from University of Science and Technology of China)
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Mr. Hongbin ZHANG (joint Ph.D. student with XJTU, 2020.9-present, BS from China University of Mining and Technology)
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Mr. Qixin ZHANG (Ph.D. student, 2020.9-present, BS from University of Science and Technology of China)
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Mr. Lyuyi ZHU (Ph.D. student, 2021.9-present, BS from Zhejiang University)
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Mr. Zhicheng LIANG (RA, 2022.8-present, MS from CityU HK, BS from Jinan University)
Alumni
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Mr. Xiangru JIAN (RA, 2020.9-2022.8, MS from CityU HK, BS from Tongji University, next hop: PhD student in CS, University of Waterloo)
Openings
I am looking for highly motivated PhD students and Postdoc fellows. Please send me your CV and transcripts if you are interested. Due to the high volume of emails, I may not be able to reply to each of them. However, I do read every applicant's email. Please do not be offended if I do not reply.
I am not interested in applying "fancy" deep nets and tricks in "interesting" applications. Potential research topics for students who want to work with me include, but are not limited to:
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Submodular optimization and applications
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Discrete choice models
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Stochastic, online, and combinatorial optimization problems in Operations Management
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Representation learning and generative models for graphs
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Approximate nearest neighbor search in high-dimensional spaces
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General graph mining and learning
I expect students to have a strong background in probability & statistics, algorithm design & analysis, optimization and programming.
Last update date :
12 May 2023