Xifeng Yan, Professor, UCSB, “Knowledge Graph and Question Answering”

Date: Monday, March 27, 2017

Time: 9:30 AM

Location: 3405 Siebel Center

Speaker: Xifeng Yan, University of California at Santa Barbara

Title: Knowledge Graph and Question Answering

Abstract:  The paradigm of information search is undergoing a significant transformation due to the rise of mobile devices. Techniques that can directly answer user questions and help users navigate the answer space are becoming more desired.  In this talk, I will give a broad introduction on knowledge graph and question answering problems studied in my lab.  Starting with the challenges and issues existing in knowledge graph query processing, I will discuss our efforts in addressing these issues, including schemaless graph querying, user feedback, factoid question benchmark, natural language questions, and query routing in collaborative networks.

Short Bio: Xifeng Yan is a professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He holds the Venkatesh Narayanamurti Chair of Computer Science. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2006 and was a research staff member at the IBM T. J. Watson Research Center between 2006 and 2008. He has been working on modeling, managing, and mining graphs in knowledge graphs, information networks, computer systems, social media and bioinformatics. His works were extensively referenced, with over 14,000 citations per Google Scholar.  He received NSF CAREER Award, IBM Invention Achievement Award, ACM-SIGMOD Dissertation Runner-Up Award, and IEEE ICDM 10-year Highest Impact Paper Award.