Dr. Chao Tian

Dr. Tian obtained his B.E degree from Tsinghua University, Beijing China, and his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from Cornell University, Ithaca NY. He worked at AT&T Labs-Research (previously known as the Shannon Labs) as a researcher on communication and signal processing for seven years, before returning to academia. He was with the University of Tennessee Knoxville for a few years before joining Texas A&M University.

• Best Paper Award at the first ‘Learn to compress’ workshop @ ISIT 2024 : “Staggered quantizers for perfect perceptual quality: A connection between quantizers with common randomness and without”.
• 2023-2024 IEEE Information Theory Society Distinguished Lecturer.
• 2022 ECE Department Star Faculty.
• Coauthor of 2020-2021 IEEE Data Storage Best Student Paper Award (awarded in 2022): “Capacity-achieving private information retrieval codes from MDS-coded databases with minimum message size” in IEEE Trans. Inform. Theory 2020.
• 2019 NetApp Faculty Fellowship.
• Coauthor 2017 IEEE Jack Wolf ISIT Best Student Paper Award: “A generic transformation for optimal repair bandwidth and rebuilding access in MDS codes” in ISIT 2017.
• 2014 IEEE Data Storage Best Paper Award: For the paper “Characterizing the rate-region of the (4,3,3) exact-repair regenerating codes” in IEEE JSAC May 2014.
• AT&T Key Contributor Award: For technical contribution in AT&T / 2010, 2011, 2013.
• Liu-Memorial Award, Cornell University: For excellence in graduate study and research / 2004.

Current Students

• Yuting CAI
• Yu-Shin HUANG
• Peter JUST
• Mohammad RAHIMI
• Tianle ZHANG
• Wenyuan ZHAO

Alumni

Postdoctoral Researcher

• Tao GUO, ECE, TAMU, Dec. 2018-Apr. 2020; now Associate Professor at Southeast University, China.

Ph.D. Students

• Kai ZHANG, Ph.D. degree ECE/TAMU, May 2020; now Assistant Professor at UT-Health School of Biomedical Informatics.
• Tianli ZHOU, Ph.D. degree CE/TAMU, May 2020; now with Google Inc.
• Ruida ZHOU, Ph.D. degree ECE/TAMU, Aug. 2023; next stop: postdoctoral researcher at UCLA.

Master Students

• Sara MOUSAVI, CS Master degree, UTK, Dec. 2017; obtained her CS Ph.D. degree at UTK in 2023.
• Vineet GARG, ECE Master degree, TAMU, May 2019; now with Apple Inc.
• Siqi FAN, ECE Master degree, TAMU, Dec. 2019; obtained his EE Ph.D. degree at TAMU in 2024.
• Jianfeng SONG, ECE Master degree, TAMU, Dec. 2019; obtained his CE Ph.D. degree at TAMU in 2023.
• Rachel YEH, ECE Master degree, TAMU, Dec. 2019; currently a software development engineer at Michaels.
• Lizi ZHANG, ECE Master degree, TAMU, May 2020.
• Tianrui CHEN, ECE Master degree, TAMU, Dec. 2021; currently a Ph.D. student at Northwestern Polytechnical University China.
• Wenjing CHEN, ECE Master degree, TAMU, Dec. 2022.
• Chandra Sekhar TEDLA, ECE Master degree, TAMU, May 2023; currently with Aira Techonologies Inc. CA

Visiting Students

• Chengyuan QIAN, TAMU, Jun. 2021-Apr. 2022; currently a Ph.D. student at TAMU.
• Min CHENG, visiting undergraduate student, University of Science and Technology of China; TAMU, Aug. 2019-Dec. 2019; currently a Ph.D. student at TAMU.
• Zekuan ZHANG, visiting undergraduate student, Southeast University (China); TAMU, Jul. 2019-Sep. 2019.
• Wenjing CHEN, visiting undergraduate student, University of Science and Technology of China; TAMU, Jul. 2018-Oct. 2018.
• Lei ZHENG, visiting Ph.D. student, Southwest Jiaotong University; TAMU, Oct. 2017-Apr. 2019; currently Assistant Professor at Guangzhou University, China.
• Jie LI, visiting Ph.D. student, Southwest Jiaotong University; UTK, Oct. 2015-Oct. 2016; now as Senior Researcher at Huawei Technology, Hong Kong.

Texas A&M University

• ECEN 601: Mathematical Methods for Signal Processing / Fall 2022-2023
• ECEN 689: Advanced Optimization Techniques and Analysis / Spring 2022, 2024
• ECEN 629: Applied Convex Optimization / Spring 2018-2021
• ECEN 446: Information Theory, Inference, and Learning / Spring 2018, Fall 2018, 2020-2023
• ECEN 681: Department Seminar Series / Fall 2019, Spring 2020, Fall 2020
• ECEN 314: Signal and Systems / Fall 2019
• ECEN 681: ISS Seminar Series / Fall 2017, Spring 2018, Fall 2018

The University of Tennessee Knoxville

• ECE 611: Convex Optimization / Fall 2016
• ECE 342: Fundamentals of Communication / Spring 2016, Spring 2017
• ECE 644: Codng and Information Theory / Fall 2015
• ECE 342: Analog Communication, AM and FM / Fall 2014, Spring 2015

Columbia University

• ELEN E6884: Topics in Data Compression / Spring 2011
• ELEN E6718: Algebraic Coding Theory / Fall 2011, 2012, 2013
• ELEN E6712: Communication Theory / Spring 2013

Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne

• IC-62: Source Coding Theory and Practice / Winter 2006

Editorship

• Guest Editor for IEEE Selected Areas on Communications-Special Issue on Rethinking the Information Identification, Representation, and Transmission Pipeline: New Approaches to Data Compression and Communication / 2023-2024
• Editor for IEEE BITS Magazine (IEEE Information Theory Magazine) / 2024-
• Guest Editor for IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Information Theory (JSAIT) on Distributed Coding and Computation / 2021-2022
• Guest Editor for Entropy–Special Issue on Information Theory and Machine Learning / 2021
• Guest Editor for IEEE Selected Areas on Communications-Special Issue on Private Information Retrieval, Private Coded Computing over Distributed Servers, and Privacy in Distributed Learning / 2020-2021
• Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on Information Theory / Jan. 2020-Jan. 2023
• Guest Editor for Entropy–Special Issue on Information and Coding for Distributed Storage / 2018-2019
• Guest Editor for Science China–Special Issue on Distributed Storage Coding / 2018
• Editor of IEEE Transactions on Communications / Jan. 2016-Jan. 2021
• Associate Editor of IEEE Signal Processing Letters / Feb. 2012-Feb. 2014