Ed Huai-Hsin Chi (Chinese: 紀懷新; Wade–Giles: Chi⁴ Huai²-hsin¹) (born c. 1973) is a Taiwanese American computer scientist and research scientist at Google, known for his early work in applying the theory of information scent to predict usability of websites.[citation needed]

Ed Chi
CitizenshipAmerican
Alma materUniversity of Minnesota
Scientific career
FieldsHuman-computer interaction
Social computing
InstitutionsPARC
Google
Doctoral advisorJohn T. Riedl

Biography

edit

Born and raised in Taipei, Taiwan, Chi moved to Minnesota in the 9th grade. He obtained his BA in 1994, his MA in 1996 and his PhD in 1999, all at the University of Minnesota.

After his MA graduation, Chi worked as a research scientist at Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) from 1997 to 2011. He started as an intern and was officially hired in 1999. From 1999-2007, he worked in the User Interface Research Group, during which time he was promoted to senior research scientist in 2005. He became area manager of the Augmented Social Group in 2007. In 2011, he left PARC and became a research scientist at Google, reporting directly to Peter Norvig in the areas of human-computer interaction and social computing. In 2017, he was promoted to principal scientist at Google, and to Distinguished Scientist in 2021.

In his spare time, Chi is an avid golfer, Taekwondo black belt, photographer, and snowboarder.[1]

Work

edit

Chi specializes in social computing and human-computer interaction. He has developed a computer system that predicts usability of Websites based on the theory of information scent, a theory by Peter Pirolli and Stuart Card that pioneered ways of understanding how people search for information online. He is also known for his work on information visualization and authored the book A Framework for Visualizing Information,[2] which describes approaches to make information visualization systems easier to develop through the use of reference models. His recent research has analyzed social behavior in large sociotechnical systems like Wikipedia, Twitter, and Digg, among other social software platforms. He has published over 80 academic articles, and he has over 20 patents. His top 9 publications have over 200 citations each.

"A Framework for Information Visualization Spreadsheets"

edit

Chi's dissertation, titled, "A Framework for Information Visualization Spreadsheets", was chaired by John T. Riedl.[3] The dissertation was an early example of the power of small multiples in information visualizations. During this time, he was awarded a University of Minnesota Graduate School Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship, Research Contribution Award, Doctoral Dissertation Award, and Best Teaching Award.

Academic work

edit

Chi has chaired top conferences and publishes regularly in top-tier academic conferences in computer science and human-computer interaction related fields. His work has been covered in various newspapers and magazines around the world, including The Economist,[4] Time,[5] Los Angeles Times, Technology Review,[6] and Wired.[7]

While at PARC, Chi published a paper[8] analyzing edits to Wikipedia, looking at content contributed vs the author's edit count.

In 2012, Chi served as the technical program co-chair for CHI, the most prestigious academic conference in the field of HCI.[9]

Recognition

edit

Chi was elected to the CHI Academy in 2018.[10] He was named to the 2022 class of ACM Fellows, "for contributions to machine learning and data mining techniques for social computing and recommender systems".[11]

In 2023, he was awarded the Distinguished Alumni award by the University of Minnesota Computer Science department.

Selected publications

edit
  • Chi, Ed Huai-hsin, ed. A Framework for Visualizing Information. Vol. 1. Springer Science & Business Media, 2002.

Articles, a selection:

References

edit
  1. ^ Ed Chi personal website
  2. ^ Chi, Ed (2002). A Framework for Visualizing Information. Springer. ISBN 140200589X.
  3. ^ Chi, Ed H. (1999). A Framework for Information Visualization Spreadsheets (phd). University of Minnesota. Retrieved 2011-09-24.
  4. ^ "Scents and sensibility". The Economist. 26 April 2001. Retrieved 24 September 2011.
  5. ^ Taylor, Chris (3 December 2000). "Team Xerox". Time. Archived from the original on January 24, 2001. Retrieved 24 September 2011.
  6. ^ Naone, Erica (24 August 2010). "Mining Mood Swings on the Real-Time Web". Technology Review. Retrieved 24 September 2011.
  7. ^ Leggett, Hadley (30 August 2009). "Wikipedia to Code Untrustworthy Text". Wired. Retrieved 24 September 2011.
  8. ^ "Power of the Few vs. Wisdom of the Crowd" (PDF).
  9. ^ "CHI 2012 Conference Committee". ACM SIGCHI. 2012. Retrieved 2011-09-24.
  10. ^ Award Recipients, ACM SIGCHI, archived from the original on 2020-03-01, retrieved 2018-10-18
  11. ^ "Global computing association names 57 fellows for outstanding contributions that propel technology today". Association for Computing Machinery. January 18, 2023. Retrieved 2023-01-18.
edit