Meet a Member – Yuankai Huo
Yuankai Huo
assistant professor
How did you get involved with data science?
My research since my Master’s study has been strongly data driven. Beyond the research, data science has been everywhere in our lives and is changing our society and behaviors. So I chose Big Data in medical image computing as my PhD research topic and enjoyed to tackle healthcare problems with unprecedented amount of data. Dr. Geoffrey Hinton, Turing Award Laureate and one founding father of deep learning, commented in his twitter :”The answer to life, the universe and everything is just 4.398 trillion parameters.”
When you’re not at the DSI, what can we find you doing?
I am a big fan of basketball since I grew up. I have been playing basketball a lot and enjoy watching any levels of the games, such as NCAA, NBA, CBA, and FIBA. I believe sports is one of the best education that people can have since it teaches us how to achieve a team goal with team works, sacrifice, and practice. More importantly, it teaches us how to accept failures. Besides basketball, I enjoy traveling and watching movies, which extends the width and depth of our lives.
What is a work related accomplishment you’re proud of?
I am proud of the achievements of my students at DSI. A recent example is that my student Zekun Wang, currently a second-year DSI Master’s student, built a serverless edge computing based face mask detection deep learning model during my machine learning class. Beyond the implementation, we have made a journal submission to a COVID-19 journal special issue. I am so proud of Zekun’s achievements in both R&D and academia. Please check our website http://facemask-detection.com/
If you could have one superpower, what would it be and why?
Let my daughters grow slower since they are so adorable now 🙂
If you could only have three apps on your smartphone, which would you pick and why?
Google Map, Camera, Youtube. Those will guide me to anywhere, record the beautiful moments and sharing.
If you could travel anywhere (money not a factor), where would you go, and why?
Istanbul, where the East meets the West. I’d like to see the fusion and combination of Eastern and Western world cultures.