Computer Science > Event > Spring’23 Grace Series Starts the Semester with Dr. Ling Liu of the School of Computer Science at the Georgia Institute of Technology

Spring’23 Grace Series Starts the Semester with Dr. Ling Liu of the School of Computer Science at the Georgia Institute of Technology

Spring 2023 Grace Series, Dr. Ling Lui, Ensemble Dirty Data

In order to help foster a stronger community for women in tech, the UT Dallas Computer Science Department has hosted a monthly lecture series called the Grace Series since the Fall of 2015. The Grace Series recognizes women and their accomplishments. The Grace Series aims to offer fresh perspectives and different approaches to navigating the technology field, whether it be in academia or industry. The Spring 2023 Grace Series has started off this semester with Dr. Ling Liu of the School of Computer Science at the Georgia Institute of Technology.

The Grace Series Talks at UT Dallas generally feature a wide range of speakers, including UT Dallas Computer Science and Software Engineering alumni, UT Dallas CS/SE professors, as well as other distinguished female and male technologists in the field. Drs. Pushpa Kumar, Janell Straach, and Linda Morales conceived the UT Dallas Grace Series after attending the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing Conference (GHC) several years ago. Through the years, additional faculty members have become involved with the series, including Drs. Karen Mazidi, Bhavani Thuraisingham, Mehra N. Borazjany, Gity Karami, and Anjum Chida. The conference, fittingly named after the woman who helped pioneer computer programming, Rear Admiral Dr. Grace Murray Hopper, has involved presentations designed to bring research and career interests of women in computing to the forefront. Every year, GHC brings together the community of female and male technologists, highlighting the best minds in computing and spotlighting the contributions of women to computing. The UT Dallas Computer Science Grace Series lectures are fashioned after the GHC Conference format.

Dr. Ling Liu of the School of Computer Science at the Georgia Institute of Technology was featured as the first spring 2023 Grace Series speaker. Dr. Liu is a Professor in the School of Computer Science at Georgia Institute of Technology. She directs research programs in the Distributed Data Intensive Systems Lab (DiSL), examining various aspects of big data-powered artificial intelligence (AI) systems and machine learning (ML) algorithms and analytics, including performance, availability, privacy, security, and trust. In her talk titled “Ensemble Learning for Dirty Data,” Dr. Liu provided an overview of a diversity-centric ensemble learning framework developed at Georgia Tech, including methodologies and algorithms for measuring, enforcing, and combining multiple neural networks by improving generalization performance of the overall system and maximizing ensemble utility and resilience to dirty data. (watch her talk)

In addition to the technical aspects of her talk, Dr. Liu also discussed experiences and lessons learned throughout her academic journey and the importance of open-ended learning, lifelong learning, and learning from interactions with diverse scholars. Toward the end of her talk, she listed her top ten lessons she has learned throughout her career. First, she advised attendees to read broadly, “I found that reading broadly and not staying on one specific topic is very helpful within research activities, which can help you create a greater understanding.” The second item on her top ten list was to advise students to be open-minded and stay problem-driven. Her third tip was to be collaborative and learn from others. The fourth item on her list is to always be ambitious and persistent. The next three lessons in her top ten included finding a good mentor, keeping a positive energy, and being grateful to the people who appreciate you. Finally, her last three tips included encouragement to play to your strengths, believe in yourself, and take care of yourself.

Dr. Liu is an elected IEEE Fellow, a recipient of the IEEE Computer Society Technical Achievement Award (2012), and a recipient of the best paper award from numerous top venues, including IEEE ICDCS, WWW, ACM/IEEE CCGrid, IEEE Cloud, IEEE ICWS. Dr. Liu has served on the editorial board of over a dozen international journals and has served as the editor-in-chief of IEEE Transactions on Service Computing (2013-2016). Currently, she is the editor-in-chief of ACM Transactions on Internet Computing (since 2019). Dr. Liu is a frequent keynote speaker in top-tier venues in Big Data, AI and ML systems and applications, Cloud Computing, Services Computing, Privacy, Security, and Trust. The USA National Science Foundation primarily supports her current research under CISE programs, with additional funding from IBM and CISCO.

Since the inception of the UT Dallas Grace Series in the spring of 2015, a total of thirty-eight inspiring women and men have spoken, including:

    1. Bhavani Thuraisingham, Louis A. Beecherl Jr. Distinguished Professor, UT Dallas CS Professor, and Executive Director of the UT Dallas Cyber Security Research and Education Institute (CSI) (Dr. Bhavani Thuraisingham Delivers the Inaugural Grace Series Lecture)
    2. Lily Wu, UT Dallas CS Professor and Director of the Data Communication and Data Management (DCDM) Laboratory (Dr. Lily Wu Inspires Students at the Second Grace Series Lecture)
    3.  I-Ling Yen, UT Dallas CS Professor (I-Ling Yen’s story)
    4. Ranran Feng, UT Dallas CS Professor (Dr. Ranran Feng tells her story at the Fall 2015 Grace Series Lectures)
    5. Sanda Harabagiu, UT Dallas CS Professor, Erik Jonsson School Research Initiation Chair, and Director of the UT Dallas Human Language Technology Research Institute (HLTRI) (Dr. Sanda Harabagiu Delivers the Last Grace Series Talk for the Spring 2016 Semester)
    6. Rym Zalila-Wenkstern, UT Dallas CS Professor and Director of the Multi-Agent and Visualization Systems lab (The 2016 Grace Series Talks Closes with Dr. Rym Zalila-Wenkstern)
    7. Inga H. Musselman, Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost for The University of Texas at Dallas (Dr. Inga Musselman Starts The 2017 Grace Series With A Talk Titled “It’s A Beautiful Life”)
    8. Jo Zhang of Fujitsu Laboratories of America (2016 Grace Series Begins With Dr. Jo Zhang of Fujitsu Labs of America),
    9. Farokh Bastani, UT Dallas CS Professor, Excellence in Education Chair, and Director of the UT Dallas site of the NSF Net-centric and Cloud Software and Systems Industry/University Cooperative Research Center (NSF NCSS I/UCRC) (Fall’17 Grace Series Presents Three Inspirational Speakers from State Farm, USAA, and UT Dallas)
    10. Peggy Shadduck, Director of both the Dallas County Community College District (DCCCD) STEM Institute and the Dallas/North Texas STEM Degree Accelerator Program (The Spring’17 Grace Series Continues to Empower With Dr. Peggy Shadduck, DCCCD STEM Institute Director)
    11. Lymari Ames of Cisco Systems (Grace Series Continues to Inspire with Lymari Ames of Cisco Systems)
    12. Romelia Flores, an IBM Distinguished Engineer and Master Inventor (The Grace Series Kicks Off The Fall’16 Series With IBM Distinguished Engineer And Master Inventor, Romelia H. Flores)
    13. Jill Blanchar, a Bank of America Information Security Executive (The Spring’17 Grace Series Draws to a Close with Jill Blanchar of Bank Of America)
    14. Lisa Frey, State Farm Scrum Master (Fall’17 Grace Series Presents Three Inspirational Speakers from State Farm, USAA, and UT Dallas)
    15. Kimberly Snipes, USAA, VP, Chief Information Officer (Fall’17 Grace Series Presents Three Inspirational Speakers from State Farm, USAA, and UT Dallas)
    16. Catherine Walsh, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Loss Prevention for Johnson Controls’ Tyco Retail Solutions
    17. Nimmi Kannankutty, Deputy Division Director in the Division of Graduate Education (DGE) at the National Science Foundation (NSF).
    18. Karen Mazidi, UT Dallas CS Professor (View her slides from her Grace Series Talk titled “Discovering Your Strengths”)
    19. Grace Kaldawi, Senior Software Engineer for Capital One Auto Finance, Amazon Web Services Certified Solutions Architect, and UT Dallas CS Alumnus (Grace Series Talks Continue to Inspire through Empowering Talks by Leading Women in Tech)
    20. Sydeaka Watson, Senior Data Scientist at Korelasi Data Insights, LLC, an independent analytics consulting company (Grace Series Talks Continue to Inspire through Empowering Talks by Leading Women in Tech)
    21. Ewa Musial, Senior Software Engineer at Blackhawk Network (Read Grace Series Talks Continue to Inspire through Empowering Talks by Leading Women in Tech or view slides of Musial’s presentation)
    22. Janell Straach, Rice University CS Professor, former UT Dallas CS professor, and one of the Grace Series founders (Read Grace Series Talks Featuring CEOs, Serial Entrepreneurs, and Professors Continue to Inspire and Empower Students or view slides of Straach’s presentation)
    23. Uni Yost, CEO/Founder of GoAskJay (Read Grace Series Talks Featuring CEOs, Serial Entrepreneurs, and Professors Continue to Inspire and Empower Students or view slides of Yost’s presentation (pdf))
    24. Smita Bakshi, President and Co-Founder of zyBooks (Read Grace Series Talks Featuring CEOs, Serial Entrepreneurs, and Professors Continue to Inspire and Empower Students or view slides of Bakshi’s presentation)
    25. Bhavani Thuraisingham, Louis A. Beecherl Jr. Distinguished Professor, UT Dallas CS Professor, and Executive Director of the UT Dallas Cyber Security Research and Education Institute (CSI) (Watch Thuraisingham’s talk)
    26. Betty Stewart, Provost, Executive Vice-President for Academic Affairs, and tenured Professor of Chemistry at the University of North Texas at Dallas (Watch Stewart’s talk)
    27. Neeti Khaitan Gupta, President, and CEO of Accelerate Consulting Inc. (Watch Gupta’s talk)
    28. Juliet G. Odima, CSM, CSPO, Executive Director, STEAM Achievers Associate Vice President, and Director, School of Data Science and Analytics, Colaberry Inc. (Watch Odima’s talk)
    29. Seda Mauer, Digital Accessibility Consultant at Seda Maurer Consulting (Watch Mauer’s talk)
    30. Shobana Radhakrishnan, Director of Engineering for Android TV at Google (Watch Radhakrishnan’s talk)
    31. Stephanie Adams, UT Dallas Erik Jonsson School Dean and Lars Magnus Ericsson Chair at The University of Texas at Dallas (Watch Adams’ talk)
    32. Elisa Bertino, a Samuel D. Conte Professor of Computer Science Cyber2Slab at Purdue University (Watch Bertino’s talk)
    33. Fanny Dunagan, CEO & LinkedIn Content Strategist at Pathlynks (Watch Dunagan’s talk)
    34. Tamara Bassam, Program Committee member for the DFW Alliance of Technology and Women (Watch Bassam’s talk)
    35. Daphne Yao, Professor of Computer Science at Virginia Tech, Elizabeth and James E. Turner Jr. ’56 Faculty Fellow and CACI Faculty Fellow (Watch Yao’s talk)
    36. Maral Mesmakhosroshahi, Deep Learning Researcher at Microsoft, and Founder and President of Iranian Women in Computing, a nonprofit organization supporting Iranian women in tech in the United States (Watch Mesmakhosroshahi’s talk)
    37. Bhavani Thuraisingham, Louis A. Beecherl Jr. Distinguished Professor, UT Dallas CS Professor, and Executive Director of the UT Dallas Cyber Security Research and Education Institute (CSI) (Watch Thursaisingham’s talk)
    38. Dr. Ling Liu, Professor in the School of Computer Science at the Georgia Institute of Technology (Watch Liu’s talk)