New Computer Science faculty earns competitive research grant
The National Science Foundation grant totals over a quarter million and will aid in Yang Zhang’ s research on scientific data compressors and AI artifacts
New Computer Science faculty earns competitive research grant
Miami University Department of Computer Science and Software Engineering assistant professor Yang Zhang is spearheading research in data compression and has earned a major grant for it.
He is the lead principal investigator of a project funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation titled “Collaborative Research: OAC Core: Mitigating Artifacts in Scientific Data Compressors with a Learning-Driven Framework.” The award totals $599,354 across two institutions, with $299,999 granted to Miami University as the lead institution.
Assistant professor Zhang collaborates with undergraduate student researchers Gunnar Von Bergen (left) and Maria Kunigk-Bakalar (right).
With his team of experts, graduate students, and undergraduate students, he is working on advancing extreme-scale scientific data compression technologies to significantly reduce storage and transmission costs while preserving data integrity and minimizing compression-induced artifacts and distortions, the defects made in this process. Using deep learning techniques, an AI method of learning from data by mimicking neural networks, his project will allow him to create smarter compression tools that maintain scientific data accuracy and ensure that critical research insights are preserved.
“Today’s research funding landscape, especially at the National Science Foundation, is highly competitive. I am truly honored to receive this award and deeply grateful for the opportunity and support it provides for our work,” Zhang said.
The impact of this research could be significant for the computing community, providing new foundations for addressing artifacts introduced during the compression process and enabling organizations to substantially reduce data storage costs.
Keeping that in mind, Zhang noted the importance this could have for future scientists.
“It will help us to train the next generation of scientists who are working on this area of emerging AI, scientific computing, and high-performance quantum computing. It gives our university a great angle of doing that,” he said. “A large portion of the budget has been allocated to help us recruit students.”
Yang Zhang, center, works alongside graduate students Jingyi Huang and Yujun Feng, both of whom are currently pursuing doctoral degrees in Computer Science at Miami University.
This process of training the scientists working on the project began Oct. 1 with the start of his research. His interdisciplinary team has commenced by gathering data, setting up the experiment environment and equipment, and building a prototype of a deep learning model that will address the artifacts.
This research project and its projected impacts are just the latest step in a notable career for Zhang.
After getting a Ph.D. in Computer Science and Engineering from Notre Dame in 2022, Zhang worked at the University of Illinois, where he was awarded with the Teachers Ranked as Excellent award all five semesters he taught. He joined Miami University as an assistant professor this fall.
Additionally, over the last summer he co-authored a book titled Social Intelligence: The New Frontier of Integrating Human Intelligence and Artificial Intelligence in Social Space in which he discusses the necessity of collaboration between AI and human intelligence.
The publication has gotten positive responses and has presented itself as a way to bridge opposing viewpoints of the AI discussion.
“People feel very excited because this is fulfilling a missing gap,” he said. “It's really been a very exciting moment to hear people give feedback like this.”
Since finalizing this publication, he has been writing new project proposals, as well. Completing his current project may build the foundation for subsequent ones in subjects such as human and AI collaboration, generative AI, and quantum computing.
Though the world of technology and AI is increasingly expanding and revealing complications, Miami University Computer Science faculty like Zhang are leading improvement and leaving an impact on the larger community.
