Professors about themselves: Ce Zhang
Assistant Professor Ce Zhang leads the Data Sciences, Data Systems, and Data Services (DS3) lab. His research areas include data science and data management, machine learning and database systems.
Professor Zhang, what are your interests and hobbies outside of science?
Calligraphy and enjoying the view on rivers, lakes, or the ocean.
What's your favourite inspirational quote?
"Knowledge and productivity are like compound interest. Given two people of approximately the same ability and one person who works ten percent more than the other, the latter will more than twice outproduce the former. The more you know, the more you learn; the more you learn, the more you can do; the more you can do, the more the opportunity – it is very much like compound interest." — Richard Hamming
What would you do if you had one year of paid leave?
Go back to graduate school to learn a completely new area of science (like psychology, astronomy, or biology).
If you weren't a scientist, what would you be?
A chef.
What is your guiding philosophy for running your lab and doing research?
The educational duty of a research lab is to put students in a position that they can succeed in achieving whatever goals they define for themselves. The research philosophy of my group is highly Baconian – we believe in a systematic and bottom-up approach to scientific discovery.
Name a fun fact about your field or your research.
My group often spends Friday together with other departments, where our collaborators give us a 2-hour "crash course" in their area (astrophysics, epigenetics, ...).
What does diversity in computer science mean to you and why is it important?
Diversity brings people with different backgrounds and cultures together; in this type of collective environment, everyone becomes the ambassador of his or her culture. A global and cross-disciplinary perspective is indispensable for doing top-notch modern computer science research.
What's the impact of your research on the society?
My research aims at "commoditising" computer science areas such as machine learning – imagine a society in which all users, not only those with a computer science background, can take advantage of data management and machine learning to make the world a better place in their daily work!