Fangjian Guo

Personal Information
Name Richard (Fangjian) Guo
Homepage richardkwo.net
Email guo@cs.duke.edu
Address Department of Computer Science, Duke University
LSRC Building D125, 308 Research Dr, Campus Box 90129
Durham, NC 27708, USA

Education
Aug 2013 – PhD Program, Department of Computer Science (specialized in Machine Learning).
present Duke University, Durham, NC, USA
Advisor: Prof. Katherine A. Heller
Aug 2013 – MS, Computer Science.
May 2016 Duke University, Durham, NC, USA
(expected) GPA: 3.97/4.00
Sept 2009 – B.Eng., Computer Science and Technology (with highest distinction).
June 2013 University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, China
GPA: 3.88/4.00 Ranking: 1st /110
Advisor: Prof. Tao Zhou Thesis: A Statistical Analysis of Diverging Moments.

Research Interests
Algorithm Large-scale machine learning, especially scalable Bayesian inference (e.g. parallel MCMC,
fast inference for latent variables)
Modeling Bayesian structural priors (e.g. low-rank, sparsity, tree, network), Bayesian hierarchical
models, Bayesian nonparameteric methods for “big” models, stochastic processes & Bayesian
dynamic models
Application Computationally understanding and predicting how humans behave and interact, espe-
cially through the interplay among structures, dynamics and contents in social processes
(e.g. online/offline communications, social networks, and recommender systems). Testing
sociological theories with statistical models and large-scale data.

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 Research Experience
June 2015 – Research Intern, Bayesian low rank models and algorithms, applied to multitask learning
Aug 2015 and large-scale outlier detection
Host: Dr. David Wipf.
Microsoft Research Asia, Beijing, China
Feb 2014 – Research Assistant, Hawkes process models of social interactions, Parallel MCMC
present Advisor: Prof. Katherine Heller.
Duke University, Durham, USA
Dec 2012 – Visiting Research Assistant, data analysis of social networks, modeling of its growth
Feb 2013 Host: Prof. Jonathan Zhu.
Web Mining Lab, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
Aug 2012 – Undergraduate Research Assistant, statistical physics of human dynamics
May 2013 Advisor: Prof. Tao Zhou.
Web Sciences Center, School of Computer Science and Engineering, UESTC, Chengdu, China

Community Service
Reviewer ICML 2015 & 2016, AISTATS 2016, NIPS 2015
Statistics and Computing (Springer)
Program NIPS 2015 Workshop on “Bayesian Nonparametrics: the Next Generation”
Committee

Academic Activities
Dec 2014 NIPS 2014 Workshop on Networks: From Graphs to Rich Data.
Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
Oct 2014 The 5th Annual Text as Data Workshop.
Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, Chicago.
July 2012 CCAST Summer School on Statistical Physics and Complex Systems.
Institute of Theoretical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing.

Graduate Coursework
Fall 2015  CPS 590.7: Algorithmic Aspects of Machine Learning
Fall 2014  STA 711: Probability & Measure Theory
 CPS 527: Computer Vision
 ECE 590: Graphical Models and Inference
Spring 2014  CPS 590: Advanced Machine Learning
 STA 960: Statistical Stochastic Processes
 STA 732: Statistical Inference
Fall 2013  STA 601: Bayesian and Modern Statistics
 STA 561: Machine Learning
 CPS 530: Design and Analysis of Algorithms

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 Teaching
Fall 2014 TA & Recitation, Duke STA 561: Probabilistic Machine Learning (graduate)
Spring 2014 TA, Duke CPS 270: Introduction to Artificial Intelligence (undergraduate)

Honors and Awards

2014 Best Use of Outside Data.
DATAFEST 2014, BY DUKE, UNC AND NCSU
2013 – 2015 Duke Graduate Fellowship.
DUKE UNIVERSITY
2012 Outstanding Winner in 2012 Interdisciplinary Contest in Modeling (0.3%).
COMAP, SPONSORED BY SIAM, NSA AND INFORMS
2012 Outstanding Graduate of Class 2013 (0.2%).
UNIVERSITY OF ELECTRONIC SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY OF CHINA
2009 – 2011 National Scholarship.
MINISTRY OF EDUCATION OF CHINA

Skills
Computing C/C++, Python, MATLAB, R, Julia
Languages Chinese (native), English (fluent)

Publications
Working Papers
[1] Fangjian Guo, David Wipf, Xiangyu Wang, and Katherine A. Heller. Bayesian automatic
rank determination. (in preparation).
Under Review/Revision
[2] Fangjian Guo, Zimo Yang, Zhidan Zhao, and Tao Zhou. Memory constraints for power-law
series. Physical Review E (under revision), arXiv:1506.09096.
Peer-reviewed Conference/Journal Papers
[3] Xiangyu Wang, Fangjian Guo∗, Katherine A. Heller, and David B. Dunson. Parallelizing
MCMC with random partition trees. Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems
(NIPS), 2015 (∗ corresponding author).

[4] Fangjian Guo and David B. Dunson. Uncovering systematic bias in ratings across categories:
a Bayesian approach. ACM Conference on Recommender Systems (ACM RecSys), 2015.

[5] Fangjian Guo, Charles Blundell, Hanna Wallach, and Katherine A. Heller. The Bayesian
Echo Chamber: modeling social influence via linguistic accommodation. International
Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Statistics (AISTATS), 2015.

[6] Fangjian Guo, Zimo Yang, and Tao Zhou. Predicting link directions via a recursive subgraph-
based ranking. Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, 392(16), 2013.

[7] Fangjian Guo, Jiang Su, and Jian Gao. Finding conspirators in the network via machine learn-

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 ing. UMAP Journal, page 275, 2012 (outstanding winner paper in 2012 Interdisciplinary
Contest in Modeling).
Peer-reviewed Workshop Papers
[8] Fangjian Guo, Charles Blundell, Hanna Wallach, and Katherine A. Heller. The Bayesian
Echo Chamber: modeling power and influence with mutually exciting processes and dy-
namic language models. In The 5th Annual Text as Data Conference, Kellogg School of
Management, Northwestern University, October 2014.

References
Prof. Katherine A. Heller, kheller@stat.duke.edu.
Department of Statistical Science, Duke University, NC, USA
Prof. David B. Dunson, dunson@duke.edu.
Department of Statistical Science, Duke University, NC, USA
Dr. David Wipf, davidwip@microsoft.com.
Microsoft Research Asia, Beijing, China
Prof. Hanna Wallach, hanna@dirichlet.net.
Microsoft Research New York City, NY, USA

Miscellaneous
2014 – 2015 Intermediate Swimming (Duke), Bull City Race (Durham, NC)
Hobbies Typography & typesetting, Graphical design

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