Zhiyuan (Jerry) Lin
zylin@cs.stanford.edu
ItsMrLin.com
Education
Stanford University September 2016 - June 2021
Ph.D. in Computer Science
Computational social science, algorithm-assisted human decision making, data science, applied statistics and machine learning
Georgia Institute of Technology August 2012 - May 2016
B.S. in Computer Science, Minor in Math
Highest Honor
Info-internetworks and intelligence threads, with all theory thread courses completed for CS major. Probability and statistics track for math minor.
Experience
Research Scientist August 2021 - Present
Meta
Performing applied research on adaptive experimentation and algorithm-assisted human decision making.
Research Intern and Collaborator June 2019 - September 2020
Facebook
Interned and collaborated externally at the Adaptive Experimentation team under Core Data Science. Worked on preference learning and experiment decision modeling.
Social Network Research Intern June 2017 - September 2017
Tencent
Interned at WeChat. Worked on user behavior modeling and article forwarding prediction leveraging latent overlapping group structures; improved performance by 20% compared to baseline model.
Applied Research Intern 2015 - 2016
eBay
Interned at Discovery team at eBay NYC office in summer 2015 and summer 2016. In summer 2015, I worked on eBay's related product recommender system. The resulted model outperformed eBay's existing counterpart by 30% in internal test. In summer 2016, I worked on complementary products recommender systems and devised user group separation models with mathematical and machine learning techniques.
Media Application & Presentation Engineer Intern May 2014 - August 2014
Yahoo
Interned in Yahoo's Homepage & Vertical team, Worked on Yahoo's homepage, mainly the mobile website. Worked collaboratively with product managers, designers, and engineers to improve the user experience at the end of articles. My work increased a group of users' engagement time by 3 times.
Undergraduate Research Assistant January 2013 - May 2016
Georgia Institute of Technology
Have been researching with Professor Polo Chau in areas including Visualization, HCI and Data Mining since spring 2013. Also have been working with Professor Eric Gilbert since fall 2014 and Professor Munmun De Choudhury since spring 2015 on Social Computing topics respectively.
Teaching
Teaching Assistant 2019 - 2021
Stanford University
Computational Social Science, MS&E 231/SOC 278, fall 2019.
Introduction to Applied Statistics, MS&E 125, winter 2019, winter 2021.
Law, Bias, and Algorithm, MS&E 330/CS 209/SOC 279/LAW 7073/CSRE 230, spring 2019.
Law, Order, and Algorithm, MS&E 330/CS 209/SOC 279/LAW 2023/CSRE 230, spring 2021.
Teaching Assistant August 2014 - December 2014
Georgia Institute of Technology
As a College of Computing mentor, led a group of 12 entering freshman students, gave information sessions to prospective students and their families, hosted middle and high school students during field trips and overnight visits and served as a teaching assistant for CS 1100.
Publications
qEUBO: A Decision-Theoretic Acquisition Function for Preferential Bayesian Optimization [PDF] [PDF] 2023
  • Raul Astudillo,
  • Zhiyuan Jerry Lin,
  • Eytan Bakshy,
  • Peter I. Frazier
Conference, AISTATS 2023.
Preference Exploration for Efficient Bayesian Optimization with Multiple Outcomes [PDF] [PDF] 2022
  • Zhiyuan Jerry Lin,
  • Raul Astudillo,
  • Peter I. Frazier,
  • Eytan Bakshy
Conference, AISTATS 2022.
Probability Paths and the Structure of Predictions over Time [PDF] [PDF] 2021
  • Zhiyuan Jerry Lin,
  • Hao Sheng,
  • Sharad Goel
Conference, NeurIPS 2021.
Blind Justice: Algorithmically Masking Race in Charging Decisions [PDF] [PDF] 2021
  • Alex Chohlas-Wood,
  • Joe Nudell,
  • Keniel Yao,
  • Zhiyuan (Jerry) Lin,
  • Julian Nyarko,
  • Sharad Goel
Conference, AAAI/ACM AIES 2021. May 19, 2021 - May 21, 2021.
Bandit Algorithms to Personalize Educational Chatbots [PDF] [PDF] 2021
  • William Cai,
  • Joshua Grossman,
  • Zhiyuan (Jerry) Lin,
  • Hao Sheng,
  • Johnny Tian-Zheng Wei,
  • Joseph Jay Williams,
  • Sharad Goel
Journal, Machine Learning, 2021.
Interactive Preference Learning For Multi-Objective Bayesian Optimization in Online Experiments 2020
  • Zhiyuan Lin,
  • Eytan Bakshy
Work-in-progress Extended Abstract, CODE 2020. November 19, 2020 - November 20, 2020.
Preference Learning for Real-World Multi-Objective Decision Making [PDF] [PDF] 2020
  • Zhiyuan (Jerry) Lin,
  • Adam Obeng,
  • Eytan Bakshy
Conference Workshop, RealML @ ICML 2020. July 18, 2020 - July 18, 2020.
The Limits of Human Predictions of Recidivism [PDF] [PDF] 2020
  • Zhiyuan (Jerry) Lin,
  • Jongbin Jung,
  • Sharad Goel,
  • Jennifer Skeem
Journal, Science Advances, 2020, vol. 6, no. 7.
Preference Learning for Multi-Objective Decision Making in Online Experiments 2019
  • Zhiyuan Lin,
  • Adam Obeng,
  • Eytan Bakshy
Work-in-progress Extended Abstract, CODE 2019. November 1, 2019 - November 2, 2019. Boston, MA, USA.
Guiding Prosecutorial Decisions with an Interpretable Statistical Model [PDF] [PDF] 2019
  • Zhiyuan Lin,
  • Alex Chohlas-Wood,
  • Sharad Goel
Conference, AAAI/ACM AIES 2019. January 27, 2019 - January 28, 2019. Honolulu, Hawaii, USA.
I'll Be Back: On the Multiple Lives of Users of a Mobile Activity Tracking Application [PDF] [PDF] 2018
  • Zhiyuan Lin,
  • Tim Althoff,
  • Jure Leskovec
Conference, WWW 2018. April 23, 2018 - April 27, 2018. Lyon, France.
Better When It Was Smaller? Community Content and Behavior After Massive Growth [PDF] [PDF] 2017
  • Zhiyuan Lin,
  • Niloufar Salehi,
  • Bowen Yao,
  • Yiqi Chen,
  • Michael Bernstein
Conference, AAAI ICWSM 2017. May 15, 2017 - May 18, 2017. Montreal, Canada.
FACETS: Adaptive Local Exploration of Large Graphs [PDF] [PDF] 2017
  • Robert Pienta,
  • Minsuk Kahng,
  • Zhiyuan Lin,
  • Jilles Vreeken,
  • Partha Talukdar,
  • James Abello,
  • Ganesh Parameswaran,
  • Duen Horng Chau
Conference, SIAM SDM 2017. April 27, 2017 - April 29, 2017. Houston, Texas, USA.
"This Post Will Just Get Taken Down": Characterizing Removed Pro-Eating Disorder Social Media Content [PDF] [PDF] 2016
  • Stevie Chancellor,
  • Zhiyuan (Jerry) Lin,
  • Munmun De Choudhury
Conference Note, ACM CHI 2016. May 7, 2016 - May 12, 2016. San Jose, California, USA.
Quantifying and Predicting Mental Illness Severity in Online Pro-Eating Disorder Communities [Honorable Mention] [PDF] [PDF] 2016
  • Stevie Chancellor,
  • Zhiyuan (Jerry) Lin,
  • Erica Goodman,
  • Stephanie Zerwas,
  • Munmun De Choudhury
Conference, ACM CSCW 2016. February 27, 2016 - March 2, 2016. San Francisco, California, USA.
AdaptiveNav: Adaptive Discovery of Interesting and Surprising Nodes in Large Graphs [PDF] [PDF] 2015
  • Robert Pienta,
  • Zhiyuan Lin,
  • Minsuk Kahng,
  • Jilles Vreeken,
  • Partha P. Talukdar,
  • James Abello,
  • Ganesh Parameswaran,
  • Duen Horng (Polo) Chau
Poster Abstract, IEEE VIS 2015. October 25, 2015 - October 30, 2015. Chicago, Illinois, USA.
Algorithmically Bypassing Censorship on Sina Weibo with Nondeterministic Homophone Substitutions [PDF] [PDF] 2015
  • Chaya Hiruncharoenvate,
  • Zhiyuan Lin,
  • Eric Gilbert
Conference, AAAI ICWSM 2015. May 26, 2015 - May 29, 2015. Oxford, UK.
GLO-STIX: Graph-Level Operations for Specifying Techniques and Interactive eXploration [PDF] [PDF] 2014
  • Charles D. Stolper,
  • Minsuk Kahng,
  • Zhiyuan Lin,
  • Florian Foerster,
  • Aakash Goel,
  • John Stasko,
  • Duen Horng Chau
Conference, IEEE InfoVis 2014. November 9, 2014 - November 14, 2014. Paris, France.
Journal, IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, vol. 20, no. 12, pp. 2320–2328. December 2014
Towards Scalable Graph Computation on Mobile Devices [PDF] [PDF] 2014
  • Yiqi Chen,
  • Zhiyuan Lin,
  • Robert Pienta,
  • Minsuk Kahng,
  • Duen Horng Chau
Workshop, IEEE BigData'14 Scalable Machine Learning: Theory and Applications. October 27, 2014 - October 30, 2014. Washington DC, USA.
MMap: Fast Billion-Scale Graph Computation on a PC via Memory Mapping [PDF] [PDF] 2014
  • Zhiyuan Lin,
  • Minsuk Kahng,
  • Kaeser Md. Sabrin,
  • Duen Horng Chau,
  • Ho Lee,
  • U Kang
Conference, IEEE BigData 2014. October 27, 2014 - October 30, 2014. Washington DC, USA.
GLOs: Graph-Level Operations for Exploratory Network Visualization [PDF] [PDF] 2014
  • Charles D. Stolper,
  • Florian Foerster,
  • Minsuk Kahng,
  • Zhiyuan Lin,
  • Aakash Goel,
  • John Stasko,
  • Duen Horng Chau
Work-In-Progress Poster, CHI 2014. April 26, 2014 - May 1, 2014. Toronto, Canada.
Demonstrating Interactive Multi-resolution Large Graph Exploration [PDF] [PDF] 2013
  • Zhiyuan Lin,
  • Nan Cao,
  • Hanghang Tong,
  • Fei Wang,
  • U Kang,
  • Duen Horng Chau
Demo, ICDM 2013. December 7, 2013 - December 10, 2013. Dallas, Texas, USA.
Interactive Multi-resolution Exploration of Million Node Graphs [PDF] [PDF] 2013
  • Zhiyuan Lin,
  • Nan Cao,
  • Hanghang Tong,
  • Fei Wang,
  • U Kang,
  • Duen Horng Chau
Poster Abstract, IEEE VIS 2013. October 13, 2013 - October 18, 2013. Atlanta, Georgia, USA.
Leveraging Memory Mapping for Fast and Scalable Graph Computation on a PC [PDF] [PDF] 2013
  • Zhiyuan Lin,
  • Duen Horng Chau,
  • U Kang
Workshop, IEEE BigData'13 Scalable Machine Learning: Theory and Applications. October 9, 2013 - October 6, 2013. Santa Clara, California, USA.
Scalable, Minimalist Graph Computation on a PC via Memory Mapping 2013
  • Zhiyuan Lin,
  • Duen Horng Chau,
  • U Kang
Workshop, Workshop on Information in Networks (WIN 2013). October 4, 2013 - October 5, 2013. New York, New York, USA.
Honors and Awards
Student Service Award 2017 - 2019
Department of Computer Science, Stanford University
Awarded to students for outstanding computer science departmental services.
The T. S. Lo Graduate Fellowship 2016 - 2017
School of Engineering, Stanford University
A Stanford School of Engineering fellowship for academic year 2016 - 2017.
President's Undergraduate Research Award (PURA) July 2013 - February 2016
Georgia Institute of Technology
The Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program competitively funds individual requests by a student/faculty teams to support undergraduate student involvement in faculty research. Zhiyuan has received the President's Undergraduate Research Travel Award (PURA) in October 2014 for IEEE BigData'14 ($1,000) and February 2016 for ACM CSCW'16 ($500) and Salary Award ($1,500) in July 2013 respectively.
CRA Outstanding Undergraduate Researchers Finalist January 2016
Computing Research Association (CRA)
This award program recognizes undergraduate students in North American universities who show outstanding research potential in an area of computing research. Awarded to be one of the five male finalists from PhD-granting institutions.
College of Computing Best Oral Presentation April 2015
the 10th Annual Undergraduate Research Symposium, Georgia Institute of Technology
Georgia Tech's Annual Undergraduate Research Spring Symposium, where students share research with students and faculty from all over campus
Outstanding Undergraduate Research Award April 2015
Georgia Institute of Technology
Georgia Tech College of Computing Annual Award and Honor. Recognized by both College of Computing and Georgia Tech.
Georgia Tech Student Representative April 2015
Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC)
Selected to be one of the seven Georgia Tech student representative at The 10th Annual Meeting of the Minds Conference held at North Carolina State University.
NSF Student Travel Award October 2014
National Science Foundation (NSF)
IEEE Big Data 2014 offers NSF student travel awards to selected student authors. $600.
Top Presentation at the 9th Undergraduate Research Kaleidoscope (URK) October 2014
The Tower Journal, Georgia Institute of Techonology
1st Place at the Undergraduate Research Kaleidoscope. The Undergraduate Research Kaleidoscope (URK) is a dynamic venue where it showcases a diverse array of undergraduate research projects being conducted at Georgia Tech. All presentations are in the pecha kucha style (20 slides, 20 seconds each) and should convey the impact and significance of a particular research project rather than specific technical results.
2014 Faces of Inclusive Excellence at Georgia Tech September 2014
Georgia Institute of Techonology
A publication and showcase to highlight the diversity of Georgia Tech's faculty, staff, and students who make significant contributions to Georgia Tech's national reputation as a diverse and inclusive technology-focused institution.
2nd Place Poster in College of Computing April 2014
the 9th Annual Undergraduate Research Symposium, Georgia Institute of Techonology
Georgia Tech's Annual Undergraduate Research Spring Symposium, where students share research with students and faculty from all over campus
Sigma Xi Best Undergraduate Thesis Award March 2014
Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society
Each year since 1947, the Georgia Tech Chapter of Sigma Xi has honored Georgia Tech faculty and students for their research at the annual Spring Awards Banquet. Honored to be one of the only two undergraduate awardees.
2nd place in Convergence Innovation Competition (CIC) November 2013
Georgia Tech Research Network Operations Center (GT-RNOC)
the Institute for People and Technology (IPaT)
The Convergence Innovation Competition (CIC) is an annual event produced by Georgia Tech Research Network Operations Center (GT-RNOC) and the Institute for People and Technology (IPaT). The overarching goal of the CIC is to create innovative and viable products and experiences including a strong user experience and a business case. My team's submission was a mobile-based scavenger hunt campus tour app.
SC13 Experiencing HPC for Undergraduates November 2013
The International Conference for High Performance Computing, Networking, Storage and Analysis (SC13)
The Experiencing HPC for Undergraduates program provides exposure to HPC research topics and techniques for undergraduate students at the sophomore level and above. Selected to be one of the 25 undergraduate awardees worldwide.
Faculty Honors 2012 - 2016
Georgia Institute of Technology
Faculty honors-includes all degree-seeking undergraduates who during the preceding term made an academic average of 4.00, completed a schedule of at least 12 hours of coursework on a letter-grade basis with no W grades, and are not on academic warning or probation or subject to any disciplinary action.
Received in fall 2012, spring 2013, and spring 2016.
Dean's List 2013 - 2015
Georgia Institute of Technology
Undergraduate degree-seeking students are eligible for Deans List for the term, if the following conditions are met: An academic standing of GOOD; No Incomplete (I) grades; At least 12 hours of course work on a letter grade basis; Academic average of 3.00 or higher.
Received in fall 2013, spring 2014, fall 2014, spring 2015, and fall 2015
Valedictorian May 2012
Accelerated Elementary and Secondary School
Graduated from Accelerated Elementary and Secondary School as valedictorian.
Medalist in Science Olympiad Arizona State Finals March 2012
Arizona Science Olympiad Division C
1st place in Math Application, 2nd place in Fermi Question, 4th, 5th and 6th places respectively in Technical Problem Solving, Chemistry Lab, and Helicopter.
First Prize in National Olympiad in Informatics in Provinces (NOIP) October 2010
China Computer Federation (CCF)
It was a programming competition, in a form similar to ACM-ICPC. Participants were asked to designed algorithms and write programs solving problems in a limited amount of time. Ranked 131 out of 7817 nation-wide in the final.
Competitions and Hackathons
2nd Place at Citadel Datathon October 2018
Citadel Datathon 2018
The Data Open, a datathon competition taking place throughout the year at a series of top universities. At each event, participants collaborate in teams to work through a large and complex dataset and then submit their findings to a panel of judges. 2nd place of datathon at Stanford.
Runner-up in Inequality Track and Capital One API prize Awardee November 2015
HackDuke'15
A platform that statistically infers aluminum cans' distribution using heterogeneous data to help homeless people to recycle them and earn money.
3rd Place at Iron Coder September 2015
Cardlytics
Won the 3rd place at Iron Coder competition, an annual programming competition held by Cardlytics. Featured by Georgia Tech news and online news media Patch and Pitchengine.
Best Education Technology Hack September 2015
PennApps XII
Won at PennApps XII with over 300 teams. Built a web service named Illustratr that automatically generates visual illustrations for a given piece of text.
Coursera Prize for Best Hack to Improve Online Education November 2014
HackDuke'14
A chrome extension to improve the learning experience on Coursera. We increased the range and variety of playback, along with some Spritz functionality. We also use NLP to query the forums to bring the user relevant forum discussions when he/she is confused.
1st Place at Iron Coder September 2014
Cardlytics
Won the 1st place at the bi-annual programming competition held by Cardlytics. Featured by tech blog Hypepotamus and online news media Patch.
Hack for Good: Internet of Things for Disaster Recovery March 2014
CERCS & Intel
It uses Intel's newest hardware and software tools for expanding the Internet of Things. It features coding on the Galileo board and access to data processing through the Cloud. Our project was preserved by the organizers.
1st Place in GIT MAD's Appathon October 2013
GIT MAD & GT WebDev
GIT MAD's semi-annual Hackathon. Worked with two other teammates. I worked on the back-end math/algorithms and part of UI elements.
Mobile Data Award in HackMIT October 2013
HackMIT
My team created an experience sharing Android mobile app.
2nd Place in the coding event in Google Games Atlanta 2013 April 2013
Google
A competition held by Google consisted of five different events. Participated with four other teammates.
Mobile Tech Award in GIT MAD's Appathon April 2013
GIT MAD & GT WebDev
GIT MAD's semi-annual Hackathon. Worked with two other teammates. The part I worked on was mainly the back-end engine along with the algorithm that the mobile campus tour-guiding app was using.
2nd Place in Georgia Tech's Annual Hall Hack March 2013
Georgia Institute of Technology
This is a computer programming competition in Georgia Tech held for Freshmen.
Activities and Organizations
Computer Science Ph.D. Admit Weekend 2017 - 2019
Co-chair
Organize Stanford 2017, 2018, and 2019 computer science Ph.D. admit weekend events and activities.
Association of Chinese Students and Scholars at Stanford (ACSSS) April 2017 - April 2018
Vice President, Alumni Department
College of Computing Career Services August 2015 - May 2016
Career Ambassador
Serve as college of computing career ambassador, hold weekly office hours to provide career advice, such as resume critique, general interview tips, and mock technical interviews, to peer students.
Georgia Tech Technical Interview Preparation (GTTIP) January 2015 - May 2016
Co-founder, Co-president, Lecturer
Give weekly talks on algorithms and programming technical interview questions and skills. Plan and organize events. Co-president since fall 2015.
The Tower October 2014 - May 2016
Editorial Board Member, Assistant Webmaster
Working at The Tower, the premiere interdisciplinary research journal for undergraduates at the Georgia Institute of Technology, as editorial board member and assistant webmaster.
GT WebDev September 2014 - May 2016
Marketing Lead, Technical Committee Member
As a member of WebDev's technical committee, responsible for planning and giving weekly talks about web development. Elected to be marketing lead since fall 2015.
HackGT January 2014 - October 2015
Organizer
The biggest hackathon in the south. Part of HackGT hackathon event organizing group, responsible for technical development, fund raising and event planning.
Georgia Tech College of Computing Mentorship Program April 2014 - May 2015
Mentor
Lead a group of entering freshman students, give information sessions to prospective students and their families, host middle and high school students during field trips and overnight visits, and serve as a teaching assistant for CS 1100 orientation class.
Undergraduate International Student Ambassador November 2012 - December 2013
Georgia Tech International Ambassador (GTIA)
Aimed to help prospective international students find more information about Georgia Tech and the United States.
Georgia Tech Chinese Friendship Association (GTCFA) October 2012 - December 2013
Webmaster
Helped develop and maintain GTCFA's website.
Georgia Tech Badminton Club August 2012 - December 2013
Webmaster
Maintain and update the club's website.
Non-Academic Publications
In the U.S. criminal justice system, algorithms help officials make better decisions, our research finds 2020
  • Zhiyuan (Jerry) Lin,
  • Jongbin Jung,
  • Sharad Goel,
  • Jennifer Skeem
Washington Post. March 2, 2020
The Art of Machine-Human Translation 2015
  • Jerry Lin
The Tower (research journal for undergraduates at Georgia Tech), Volume VII, Issue I, Page 20. 2015