[CV] [Publications]
Research Interests
Database theory and systems; data security and privacy; parallel and distributed algorithms; sampling; data summarization; data streams; data structures; external memory algorithms; computational geometry.
Exploiting the rich interdependence between theory and practice is the
main theme of my research. I always strive to design algorithms with nice
theoretical guarantees that also work well in practice. I like simple
algorithms with nontrivial and elegant analyses. I like theories that
bring insights to how things should be done in practice (this includes
lower bounds!).
Despite of the theoretical focus, our group has developed the following system prototypes based on the theory:
- DPSQL: A differentially private SQL engine.
- SparkSQL+: Next-generation query planning over Spark using generalized hypertree decompositions (GHD), worst-case optimal join (WCOJ) algorithms, and conjunctive queries with comparisons (CQC).
- SecYan: Two-party secure query processing based on the secure Yannakakis algorithm.
- CROWN and Cquirrel: Continuous query processing / change propogation in Flink.
- XDB: Online aggregation for PostgreSQL based on the wander join algorithm.
My research has been supported by Hong Kong RGC, Alibaba, Huawei, Microsoft, and Google.
Students
Current students:
- Juanru Fang (PhD, since Fall 2020; HK PhD Fellowship)
- Yuting Liang (PhD, since Fall 2020)
- Dajun Sun (PhD, since Fall 2021; HK PhD Fellowship)
- Bingnan Chen (PhD, since Fall 2021)
- Zijun Chen (PhD, since Fall 2022; HK PhD Fellowship)
- Binyang Dai (PhD, since Fall 2022)
- Jianzhe Yu (PhD, since Fall 2023)
- Tian Shu (PhD, since Fall 2024; HK PhD Fellowship)
- Qi Dong (MPhil, since Fall 2024)
Former students:
- Qiyao Luo (PhD, 2024; now Associate Researcher at Ant Group)
- Wei Dong (PhD, 2023; SIGMOD Jim Gray Doctoral Dissertation Award Runner-up; now Assistant Professor at Nanyang Technological University)
- Qichen Wang (PhD, 2022; now Postdoctoral Fellow at EPFL)
- Yuan Qiu (PhD 2022; now Research Fellow at National University of Singapore)
- Yilei Wang (PhD, 2022; now Research Scientist at Alibaba Cloud)
- Ziyue Huang (PhD 2022; now at Tencent)
- Xiao Hu (PhD 2019; now Assistant Professor at University of Waterloo)
- Yu Chen (PhD 2019; now at Alibaba)
- Bin Wu (PhD 2017; now Senior Technology Research Expert at Alibaba Cloud)
- Di Chen (PhD 2017; co-advised with Mordecai Golin; now at Virtu Financial, Singapore)
- Han Xu (PhD 2016; co-advised with Yunhao Liu; now at Huawei)
- Ge Luo (PhD 2016; now Chief Scientist at DataYes)
- Lu Wang (PhD 2015; now at Google Switzerland)
- Xiaoyu Ji (PhD 2015; co-advised with Yunhao Liu; now Professor at Zhejiang University)
- Longfei Shangguan (PhD 2015; co-advised with Yunhao Liu; now Assistant Professor at University of Pittsburgh)
- Zengfeng Huang (PhD 2013; now Professor at Fudan University)
- Zhewei Wei (PhD 2012; now Professor at Renmin University)
- Qin Zhang (PhD 2011; co-advised with Mordecai Golin; now Professor at Indiana University Bloomington)
- Haoqian Zhang (MPhil 2019; now PhD student at EPFL)
- Junhong Cao (MPhil 2019)
- Serafeim Papadias (MPhil 2018; now PhD student at TU Berlin)
- Dexter Lee (MPhil 2018)
- Wai Ming Tai (MPhil 2015; now postdoc at University of Chicago)
- Hao Liu (MPhil 2014; now Assistant Professor at HKUST-GZ)
- Ching-Hin Lau (MPhil 2009)
- Wenqi Zhu (MPhil 2008)
- Konstantinos Tsakalidis (Postdoc 2012 ~ 2013; now Lecturer at University of Liverpool)
- Xiao Wang (Final-year thesis 2013; now Assistant Professor at Northwestern University)
- Zhepeng Yan (Final-year thesis 2010; now at Google Mountain View)
Awards
- ACM SIGMOD Best Paper Award, 2016, 2022.
- ACM SIGMOD Best Paper Honorable Mention, 2022, 2024.
- ACM SIGMOD Research Highlight Award, 2017, 2023 (2).
- ACM PODS Test-of-Time Award, 2022.
- ACM Distinguished Member, 2021.
- ACM SIGMOD Best Demonstration Award, 2015.
- Outstanding Research Collaboration Award, Alibaba Innovative Research Program (AIR), 2024.
-
HKUST School of Engineering Young Investigator Research Award, 2012.
- Google Faculty Research Award, 2010.
- Best Teaching Award, MSc Program in Big Data Technology, 2017, 2020.
- Outstanding Ph.D. Dissertation Award, Department of Computer Science, Duke University, August, 2006.
- Top-grade Scholarship, Tsinghua University, 2001.
- Silver Medal, International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI), 1997.
Teaching
COMP 2711: Discrete Mathematical Tools for Computer Science (17S, 19S, 20S, 21S, 22S, 22F, 23S)
COMP 3711: Design and Analysis of Algorithms (08F, 09S, 09F, 11F, 12F, 14F, 15S, 15F, 16S, 24S)
COMP 3721: Theory of Computation (11S, 12S, 13S)
COMP 5711: Advanced Algorithms (14F, 15F, 16F, 17F, 18F, 19F, 20F, 21F, 23F)
COMP 5713: Computational Geometry (10S)
MSBD 5003: Big Data Computing (17S, 17F, 18S, 18F, 19S, 19F, 20F, 21F, 23S, 24S)
COMP 6311D: Hot Topics on Big Data: Algorithms, Analytics and Applications (13F)
COMP 670S: Data Stream Algorithms (10F)
COMP 670R: Hashing (09F)
COMP 670Q: I/O-Efficient Algorithms and Data Structures (08S)
Contact
Email: user name in the url@ust.hk
Phone: +852-2358 8770
Fax: +852-2358 1477
