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Alexander
Behm

Ph.D. in Information & Computer Science

John
Brock

1st-year Ph.D. student in Computer Science

Ellie
Harmon

4th-year Ph.D. student in Information & Computer Science

Sun Young Park

4th-year Ph.D. student in Information & Computer Science

Arjun
Satish

5th-year Ph.D. student in Computer Science

Nicole Miya Sylvester

2nd-year Ph.D. student in Information & Computer Science

Tianbing
Xu

4th-year Ph.D. student in Computer Science

2012-13 Yahoo Best Dissertation Fellow

Tianbing Xu

Tianbing Xu has received the Yahoo Best Dissertation Fellowship Award for academic year 2012-13. Professor Amelia Regan nominated Xu in recognition of his research in "large scale on-line advertising" and the significance of his results to date.

Where are you from?

I am from Suzhou, China, which is in the southeast part of the country.

What are your previous academic degrees?

I have an M.S. in computer science from The State University of New York at Binghamton.

Why did you choose to pursue graduate studies at UCI?

UCI has an outstanding computer science program, and it’s located in paradise.

What is your current research focus? Why did you choose to go into this field of study?

Currently, I am working on large-scale machine learning and optimization methods with applications in online advertising — trying to find the best ways to match ads to users, to maximize revenue-related objectives for billions of users. The research is finding ways to solve real industry problems with fundamental machine learning and optimization theories.

What are your future plans?

I hope to find an exciting research and engineering position in industry so that my work can have both immediate and lasting impacts.

How do you like to spend your time outside of school?

I like coding, playing tennis and traveling around the world.

Any words of wisdom for prospective grad students looking to study at UCI?

As Albert Einstein famously said, "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler."