The School of Information at the University of Texas at Austin is pleased to announce that Dr. Ying Ding will be joining the iSchool faculty this fall as the Bill & Lewis Suit Professor of Information Technology.
Currently a Professor of Informatics and Information Science at Indiana University in the School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering, Ding also serves as Director of Graduate Studies for the Data Science Program at IU.
In addition to being Professor of Informatics and core faculty of Cognitive Science, Ding is also Director of the Web Science Lab, faculty member of the Center for Complex Networks and Systems Research, and faculty member of the Chemical Informatics Center. Previously, she worked as a senior researcher at the University of Innsbruck, Austria and as a researcher at the Free University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
Her research interests include data science for applications, data-driven science of science, bibliometrics, semantic web, data-driven knowledge discovery, AI powered drug discovery, and knowledge graph and mining. Her research areas encompass complex systems, artificial intelligence, biomedical and health data science, data analytics for graphs, and database and information systems.
She has taught courses in Semantic Web (e.g., Data Semantics), Database (e.g., SQL and NoSQL, Database Design), Data Science Onramp Courses (e.g., mini-online courses about data science skills), Introduction to Doctoral Research in Information Science, Evaluation of Information System, Information Analytics, and Metadata & Semantics.
Ding has been involved in various NIH, NSF, and European Union-funded Semantic Web projects, and has published 190+ papers in journals, conferences, and workshops. She is co-editor of the book series called, Semantic Web Synthesis published by Morgan & Claypool, and co-author of the book, "Intelligent Information Integration in B2B Electronic Commerce,” published by Kluwer Academic Publishers.
In addition, Ding is co-author of two book chapters in "Spinning the Semantic Web," published by MIT Press, and the book, "Towards the Semantic Web: Ontology-driven Knowledge Management," published by Wiley. She is an editorial board member of four ISI-indexed top journals in Information Science and Semantic Web.
“Professor Ding has assembled a world-leading academic record in her career, and will be an excellent addition to the iSchool,” noted Dean Eric T. Meyer. “We look forward to her taking a leading role in our growing research and teaching in the area of health informatics and bringing in new collaborations and sources of funding.”
Dr. Ding will also have a courtesy appointment with the Department of Population Health at Dell Medical School.
As Bill & Lewis Suit Professor of Information Technology, Ding plans to build one of the best AI in medicine and healthcare programs by inviting top players to invited talk series, engaging iSchool students and faculty with local industry experts in healthcare-related projects, and organizing summer camps by connecting best mentors and talents to solve urgent local health issues.
“My goal is to create an innovative research agenda for AI in medicine and healthcare by building bridges to connect talents from schools on campus, such as Texas iSchool, Dell Medical School, Department of Computer Science, College of Pharmacy, Department of Statistics and Data Science, the local industry, and startups” said Ding.
“I look forward to joining the iSchool at UT Austin and working with colleagues to extend the current curriculum by adding applied data science courses based on my experience as the Director of Graduate Studies of Data Science Program, and previously the Associate Director for Data Science Online Program at Indiana University,” said Ding. “It will be an exciting journey and I am ready for it.”
Ding has served as Changjiang Guest Professor at the School of Information Management, Wuhan University, China; Elsevier Guest Professor at Tongji University, Shanghai; and Senior Researcher, Fudan University, Shanghai.
Ding received her Ph.D. from Nanyang Technological University in Singapore in 2001. She is co-founder and chief technology officer (CTO) of Data2Discovery and volunteer co-organizer at Silicon Valley Entrepreneurs Festival. To learn more about Dr. Ying Ding, visit her website.