Zhou Yu
Associate Professor of Computer Science
Zhou Yu designs algorithms for real-time intelligent interactive systems that coordinate with user actions that are beyond spoken languages, including non-verbal behaviors to achieve effective and natural communications.
In particular, she optimizes human-machine communication via studies of multimodal sensing and analysis, speech and natural language processing, machine learning, and human-computer interaction. The central focus of her research is to bring together all the areas above to design, implement and deploy end-to-end real-time interactive intelligent systems that are able to plan globally considering interaction history and current user actions to achieve better user experience and task performance. She enjoys collaborating with researchers with different backgrounds on interdisciplinary research in all areas of science, such as health care, education, and robotics.
Yu joined Columbia University as an Assistant Professor in Jan 2021. Before that, she was an Assistant Professor at UC Davis. She received her PhD at the Language Technologies Institute at the School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University 2017.
Research Areas
- Intelligent Interactive Systems
- Coordinate with User Actions
- Beyond Spoken Languages
- Including Non-verbal Behaviors
- Achieve Effective and Natural Communications
- Optimize Human-Machine Communication
- Studies of Multimodal Sensing and Analysis
- Speech and Natural Language Processing
- Machine Learning
- Human-Computer Interaction
Additional Information
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Professional Experience
- July 2017 -Dec 2020, Assistant Professor at University of California, Davis
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Professional Affiliations
- Columbia University, Jan 2021
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Honors & Awards
- Winner of the Amazon Alexa Prize Social Bot 2018
- Forbes 30 under 30 2019
- ACL 2019 best paper nomination
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Education
- PhD, CS, Carnegie Mellon University