Professor wins NSF CAREER award for AI research
Miao Yin, an assistant professor in the Computer Science and Engineering Department at The University of Texas at Arlington, has received a Faculty Early Career Development Program award from the National Science Foundation to advance his research and education initiatives.
Known as the CAREER award, the honor is the NSF’s most prestigious recognition for junior faculty. Recipients are recognized as outstanding researchers with the potential to become leaders in both education and research.
The $595,928 grant will support Dr. Yin’s development of an innovative computing framework that combines artificial intelligence and neural learning to improve scientific data compression. The technology is designed to help scientists more efficiently store, transfer and use massive datasets.
“The goal is to make the existing high-performance computing infrastructure more usable and enhance speed, quality and performance for scientists who are sharing their data across networks,” Yin said.
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Scientists studying complex natural phenomena—such as climate change, astrophysical evolution, fluid motion and biological processes that are not easy to observe directly—rely on high-performance computing to run simulations and analyze those processes. Those simulations generate enormous amounts of data that can be difficult to store and transfer.
Data compression plays a critical role because simulations can take significantly longer to process when data remains in its original form. Researchers also frequently transfer data between research clusters, requiring it to be compressed before sending and decompressed upon arrival. As high-performance computing systems continue to advance, researchers must develop new algorithms capable of handling increasingly large and complex datasets.
Yin’s project will integrate artificial intelligence and neural models with traditional scientific compression methods to create new multi-mode neural algorithms that improve quality, reliability and efficiency. He also plans to develop specialized hardware and automated architecture-mapping techniques to help the systems run more efficiently.
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“The challenge of sharing and storing massive amounts of data may slow scientific discovery, but Dr. Yin’s work could ease the current limitations and make it easier for scientists to collaborate and bring their discoveries to light,” said Hong Jiang, chair of the Computer Science and Engineering Department.
Yin joined UTA in 2023. His research interests include AI systems, high-performance computing, spatial computing and higher-order tensor decomposition.
— Jeremy Agor, College of Engineering
About The University of Texas at Arlington (UTA)
The University of Texas at Arlingtonis a growing public research university in the heart of Dallas-Fort Worth. With a student body of over 42,700, UTA is the second-largest institution in the University of Texas System, offering more than 180 undergraduate and graduate degree programs. Recognized as a Carnegie R-1 university, UTA stands among the nation’s top 5% of institutions for research activity. UTA and its 300,000 alumni generate an annual economic impact of $28.8 billion for the state. The University has received the Innovation and Economic Prosperity designation from the Association of Public and Land Grant Universities and has earned recognition for its focus on student access and success, considered key drivers to economic growth and social progress for North Texas and beyond.