• CV (PDF)
• Bio
• Contact
• Publications
• Design
• Blog

Submit to IDEA Workshop @KDD 2013, Chicago!

Positions

1. Aug 2012 - Assistant Professor
   School of Computational Science & Engineering, Georgia Tech
2. Dec 2012 - Adjunct Assistant Professor
   School of Interactive Computing, Georgia Tech

Education

1. Aug 2012
   Ph.D. Machine Learning Carnegie Mellon University
   Thesis: Data Mining Meets HCI: Making Sense of Large Graphs
   Award: Carnegie Mellon SCS Dissertation Award, Honorable Mention
   Committee: Christos Faloutsos, Jason Hong, Niki Kittur, Jiawei Han (UIUC)
   Watch my defense video on YouTube.
   
2. May 2010 M.S. Machine Learning Carnegie Mellon University
3. Aug 2005 Masters of Human-Computer Interaction Carnegie Mellon University
4. 2004 B.Eng. Information Engineering (Honors) The Chinese Univ. of Hong Kong
   Online Auction Fraud Detection
   Advisor: Prof. Soung-Chang Liew
5. 2000 Diocesan Boys' School (high school) Hong Kong

Research Interests

1. My research bridges Data Mining and Human-Computer Interaction to synthesize systems and tools that help people understand and interact with Big Data. My thesis focuses on massive networks with billions of nodes and edges.
2. I blend techniques from machine learning (Belief Propagation), data mining (anomaly detection), visualization and user interaction. Notable projects:

   Apolo

   mixed-initiative system (ML+vis) for making sense of large network data (watch a demo);
   Apolo helps users incrementally find relevant subgraphs to explore, avoids overwhelming the user

   Polonium

   malware detection using machine learning, over massive graph with 37 billion machine-file relationships; protects 120 million Symantec machines worldwide; patented.

   NetProbe

   auction fraud detection (eBay) that fingers bad guys by identifying their suspicious transactions;
   appeared in Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and more

   PEGASUS

   award-winning project that creates graph algorithms for massive graph data

Academic Honors & Awards

1. 2012Carnegie Mellon School of Computer Science Dissertation Award, Honorable Mention
2. 2010Open Source Software World Challenge, Silver Award (3rd place), for the PEGASUS project which mines billion-node graphs. U Kang, Duen Horng Chau, Christos Faloutsos
3. 2009-2010Symantec Research Labs Graduate Fellowship, covers full tuition and stipend (in addition to the previous fellowship). Re-selected, as one of the only three graduate students worldwide to receive the award.
4. 2009Yahoo! Key Scientific Challenges Award, in Information Retrieval, Algorithms, and Data Mining. Awarded as one of the 20 graduate student nationwide, with a gift of $5,000 unrestricted research fund.
5. 2008-2009Symantec Research Labs Graduate Fellowship, covers full tuition and stipend. Selected as one of the only two graduate students to receive the award. Featured on: The Wall Street Journal, MSN Money, CNNMoney.com, The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Fox Business, AOL Money & Finance, MSNBC Business.
6. 2008Winner, Symantec research competition (internal).
7. 2006Best Presentation Award, 3rd Place, PKDD'06.
8. 2001, 2002, 2003Dean's List
9. 2002, 2003Nominated for university scholarships

Employment

1. Summer-Fall 2011Google, Ads Backend Team Mountain View, CA
   Ph.D. Software Engineer Intern Mentor: Dr. Arun Swami
2. Fall 2009Symantec Research Labs Los Angeles, CA
   Ph.D. Research Intern Mentor: Mr. Carey Nachenberg
3. Summer 2008Symantec Research Labs Los Angeles, CA
   Ph.D. Research Intern Mentor: Mr. Darren Shou
4. 2005-2007Carnegie Mellon University, Human-Computer Interaction Institute Pittsburgh, PA
   Research Associate Supervisor: Prof. Brad Myers
5. Summer 2003The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Lightwave Communications Lab Hong Kong
   Undergraduate Research Assistant
6. 2002-2007Elfware Company Hong Kong
   System Consultant

Teaching

Publications (Google h-index: 15)

1. PDF
   Conference Papers Mining Connection Pathways for Marked Nodes in Large Graphs. Leman Akoglu, Jilles Vreeken, Hanghang Tong, Duen Horng Chau, Nikolaj Tatti, and Christos Faloutsos. Proccedings of SIAM International Conference on Data Mining (SDM) 2013. May 2-4, 2013. Austin, Texas. [25% acceptance rate]
2. PEGASUS: Mining Billion-Scale Graphs in the Cloud. U Kang, Duen Horng Chau, and Christos Faloutsos. IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing (ICASSP) 2012. Mar 25-30, 2012. Kyoto, Japan
3. PDF
   Unifying Guilt-by-Association Approaches: Theorems and Fast Algorithms. Danai Koutra, Tai-You Ke, U Kang, Duen Horng (Polo) Chau, Hsing-Kuo Kenneth Pao, and Christos Faloutsos. European Conference on Machine Learning and Principles and Practice of Knowledge Discovery in Databases (PKDD) 2011. Sept 5-9, 2011. Athens, Greece. [20% acceptance rate]
4. PDF
   Mining Large Graphs: Algorithms, Inference, and Discoveries. U Kang, Duen Horng (Polo) Chau, Christos Faloutsos. IEEE International Conference of Data Engineering (ICDE) 2011. April 11-16. Hannover, Germany. [20% acceptance rate]
5. 
   PDF
   YouTube
   Apolo: Making Sense of Large Network Data by Combining Rich User Interaction and Machine Learning. Duen Horng (Polo) Chau, Aniket Kittur, Jason I. Hong, Christos Faloutsos. ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI) 2011. May 7-12, 2011. Vancouver, BC, Canada. [26% acceptance rate]
6. PDF
   Polonium: Tera-Scale Graph Mining and Inference for Malware Detection. Duen Horng (Polo) Chau, Carey Nachenberg, Jeffrey Wilhelm, Adam Wright, Christos Faloutsos. Proccedings of SIAM International Conference on Data Mining (SDM) 2011. April 28-30, 2011. Mesa, Arizona. [25% acceptance rate]
7. PDF
   Code
   On the Vulnerability of Large Graphs. Hanghang Tong, B. Aditya Prakash, Charalampos Tsourakakis, Tina Eliassi-Rad, Christos Faloutsos, Duen Horng (Polo) Chau. IEEE International Conference on Data Mining (ICDM) 2010. Dec 14-17, 2010. Sydney, Australia. [19% acceptance rate]
8. 
   PDF
   YouTube
   What to Do When Search Fails: Finding Information by Association. Duen Horng (Polo) Chau, Brad Myers, and Andrew Faulring. ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI) 2008. April 5-10, 2008. Florence, Italy. New York: ACM Press, Pages 999-1008. [22% acceptance rate]
9. PDF
   The eBay Graph: How Do Online Auction Users Interact? Yordanos Beyene, Michalis Faloutsos, Duen Horng (Polo) Chau, Christos Faloutsos. Computer Communications Workshops, 2008. INFOCOM. April 13-18, 2008. Phoenix, AZ.
10. PDF
    NetProbe: A Fast and Scalable System for Fraud Detection in Online Auction Networks. Shashank Pandit, Duen Horng (Polo) Chau, Samuel Wang, Christos Faloutsos. International Conference on World Wide Web (WWW) 2007. May 8-12, 2007. Banff, Alberta, Canada. Pages 201-210. [15% acceptance rate]
11. PDF
    Eyes on the Road, Hands on the Wheel: Thumb-based Interaction Techniques for Input on Steering Wheels. Ivan E. Gonzalez, Jacob O. Wobbrock, Duen Horng (Polo) Chau, Andrew Faulring, Brad A. Myers. Graphics Interface (GI) 2007. May 28-30, 2007. Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Pages 95-102. [48% acceptance rate]
12. PDF
    Demonstrating the Viability of Automatically Generated User Interfaces. Jeffrey Nichols, Duen Horng (Polo) Chau, Brad A. Myers. ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI) 2007. April 28-May 3, 2007. San Jose, CA. Pages 1283-1292. [25% acceptance rate]
13. PDF
    An Alternative to Push, Press, and Tap-tap-tap: Gesturing on an Isometric Joystick for Mobile Phone Text Entry. Jacob O. Wobbrock, Duen Horng (Polo) Chau and Brad A. Myers. ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI) 2007. April 28-May 3, 2007. San Jose, CA. Pages 667-676. [25% acceptance rate]
14. PDF
    Huddle: Automatically Generating Interfaces for Systems of Multiple Connected Appliances. Jeffrey Nichols, Brandon Rothrock, Duen Horng (Polo) Chau, Brad A. Myers. ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST) 2006. October 15-18, 2006. Montreux, Switzerland. Pages 279-288. [23% acceptance rate]
15. PDF
    In-stroke Word Completion. Jacob O. Wobbrock, Brad A. Myers, and Duen Horng (Polo) Chau. ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST) 2006. October 15-18, 2006. Montreux, Switzerland. Pages 333-336. [23% acceptance rate]
16. PDF
    Detecting Fraudulent Personalities in Networks of Online Auctioneers. Duen Horng (Polo) Chau, Shashank Pandit, and Christos Faloutsos. European Conference on Machine Learning and Principles and Practice of Knowledge Discovery in Databases (PKDD) 2006. Sept 18-22, 2006. Berlin, Germany. Pages 103-114. [15% acceptance rate]
    Best Presentation Award, 3rd place
17. PDF
    A Linguistic Analysis of How People Describe Software Problems. Andrew J. Ko, Brad A. Myers, and Duen Horng (Polo) Chau. Proceedings of VL/HCC 2006. September 4-8, 2006, Brighton, UK. Pages 127-134. [28% acceptance rate]
18. PDF
    Answering Why and Why Not Questions in User Interfaces. Brad Myers, David A. Weitzman, Andrew J. Ko, and Duen Horng (Polo) Chau. ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI) 2006. April 22-27, 2006. Montreal, Canada. Pages 397-406. [23% acceptance rate]
19. PDF
    Invited ArticlesCatching Bad Guys with Graph Mining. Polo Chau. Crossroads: The ACM Magazine for Students - The Fate of Money. Volume 17 Issue 3, Spring 2011. Pages 16-18.
20. Case study on fraud detection using social-network analysis. Duen Horng (Polo) Chau and Christos Faloutsos. Encyclopedia of Social Networks and Mining. In preparation.
21. Workshop Papers
    PDF
    Polonium: Tera-Scale Graph Mining for Malware Detection. Duen Horng (Polo) Chau, Carey Nachenberg, Jeffrey Wilhelm, Adam Wright, Christos Faloutsos. The 2nd Workshop on Large-scale Data Mining: Theory and Applications (LDMTA 2010). July 25, 2010. Washington, DC.
    IBM Student Travel Fellowship
22. PDF
    Inference of Beliefs on Billion-Scale Graphs. U Kang, Duen Horng (Polo) Chau, Christos Faloutsos. The 2nd Workshop on Large-scale Data Mining: Theory and Applications (LDMTA 2010). July 25-28, 2010. Washington, DC.
23. Supporting Ad Hoc Sensemaking: Integrating Cognitive, HCI, and Data Mining Approaches. Aniket Kittur, Duen Horng (Polo) Chau, Christos Faloutsos, Jason I. Hong. Sensemaking Workshop at CHI 2009. April 4-5, 2009. Boston, MA.
24. PDF
    Feldspar: A System for Finding Information by Association. Duen Horng (Polo) Chau, Brad Myers, and Andrew Faulring. PIM 2008: CHI 2008 Workshop on Personal Information Management. April 5-6, 2008. Florence, Italy.
25. PDF
    Fraud Detection in Electronic Auction. Duen Horng (Polo) Chau and Christos Faloutsos. Proceedings of EWMF'05: European Web Mining Forum, at ECML/PKDD'05. October 3-7, 2005. Porto, Portugal.
26. Poster Papers Fast Interactive Visualization for Multivariate Data Exploration. Changhyun Lee, Wei Zhuo, Jaegul Choo, Duen Horng (Polo) Chau. Extended Abstracts, CHI 2013 Apr 27- May 2, 2013. Paris, France.
27. TopicViz: Semantic Navigation of Document Collections. Jacob Eisenstein, Duen Horng (Polo) Chau, Aniket Kittur, Eric P. Xing. Extended Abstracts, CHI 2012. May 5-10, 2012. Austin, TX, USA.
28. Parallel Crawling for Online Social Networks. Duen Horng (Polo) Chau, Shashank Pandit, Samuel Wang, and Christos Faloutsos. International Conference on World Wide Web (WWW) 2007. May 8-12, 2007. Banff, Alberta, Canada. Pages 201-210.
29. PDF
    Integrating Isometric Joysticks into Mobile Phones for Text Entry. Duen Horng (Polo) Chau, Jacob O. Wobbrock, Brad A. Myers, Brandon Rothrock. Extended Abstracts, CHI 2006. April 22-27, 2006. Montreal, Canada. Pages 640-645.
30. Demos Interactively and Visually Exploring Tours of Marked Nodes in Large Graphs. Duen Horng (Polo) Chau, Leman Akoglu, Jilles Vreeken, Hanghang Tong, Christos Faloutsos. ASONAM 2012. Aug, 2012. Istanbul, Turkey
31. Poster
    TourViz: Interactive Visualization of Connection Pathways in Large Graphs. Duen Horng (Polo) Chau, Leman Akoglu, Jilles Vreeken, Hanghang Tong, Christos Faloutsos. KDD 2012. Aug, 2012. Beijing, China
32. Large Graph Mining System for Patterns, Anomalies & Visualization. Leman Akoglu, Duen Horng (Polo) Chau, U Kang*, Danai Koutra, Christos Faloutsos. Pacific-Asia Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining (PAKDD) 2012. May 29-Jun 1, 2012. Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
33. PDF
    Poster
    OPAvion: Mining and visualization in large graphs. Leman Akoglu, Duen Horng (Polo) Chau, U Kang, Danai Koutra, Christos Faloutsos. ACM SIGMOD Conference 2012. May 20-24, 2012. Scottsdale, Arizona, USA
34. PDF
    Apolo: Interactive Large Graph Sensemaking by Combining Machine Learning and Visualization. Duen Horng (Polo) Chau, Aniket Kittur, Jason I. Hong, Christos Faloutsos. ACM SIGKDD Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining (KDD) 2011. Aug 21-21, 2011. San Diego, California, USA.
35. PDF
    SHIFTR: A Fast and Scalable System for Ad Hoc Sensemaking of Large Graphs. Duen Horng (Polo) Chau, Aniket Kittur, Christos Faloutsos, Hanghang Tong, Jason I. Hong. ACM SIGKDD Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining (KDD) 2009. June 28-July 1, 2009. Paris, France.
36. 
    PDF
    YouTube
    GRAPHITE: A Visual Query System for Large Graphs. Duen Horng (Polo) Chau, Christos Faloutsos, Hanghang Tong, Jason I. Hong, Brian Gallagher, Tina Eliassi-Rad. International Conference on Data Mining (ICDM) 2008. Dec 15-19, 2008. Pisa, Italy.
37. Video SHIFTR: a user-directed, link-based system for ad hoc sensemaking of large heterogeneous data collections. Duen Horng (Polo) Chau, Aniket Kittur, Christos Faloutsos, Jason I. Hong. Extended Abstracts of CHI 2009. Apr 4-9, 2009. Boston, MA.

Design Awards & Leadership

1. 2006Winner, Carnegie Mellon ID card design contest. My design has been in use since then.
2. Winner, Graduate Student Assembly logo design contest. Carnegie Mellon University.
3. Winner, Language Technologies Institute T-shirt design contest. Carnegie Mellon University.
4. 2005Design lead, HCI Masters capstone project. Client: Office of Naval Research.
5. 2004Winner, webpage design contest for the New Asia College homepage. The Chinese University of Hong Kong.
6. Lead graphics designer, The Chinese University of Hong Kong 40th Anniversary Concert.
7. 1999-2000Art Director of school yearbook. Diocesan Boys' School (Hong Kong).

Talks

Panels

Patents

Press

Grants

Ph.D. Students

Masters Students

Undergraduate Students

Professtional Activities

Services At Georgia Tech

SKills

1. HCI
   • Contextual inquiry
   • Think-aloud protocol
   • Cognitive walkthrough
   • Heuristic evaluation
   • GOMS
   • Persona
   • Focus groups
   • Rapid paper prototyping
2. Programming
   • Java
   • C++
   • C
   • SQL
   • VB
   • Assembly
   • JavaScript
   • ActionScript
   • CSS
   • PHP
   • ASP
   • XML
   • HTML
3. Design
   • Photoshop
   • Illustrator
   • Premiere
   • InDesign
   • Flash
   • Lightwave 3D
   • 3D Studio MAX
4. Music
   • Pianist (20+ years)
   • Cellist (20+ years)
   • High school string orchestra conductor
   • Chamber music group member
   • Choir member
5. Languages
   • English
   • Mandarin
   • Cantonese (native)

References