Chen Li
Professor
Department of Computer Science
2086 Donald Bren Hall, University of California, Irvine, CA 92697-3435
chenli AT ics DOT uci DOT edu, Office: 949-824-9470
Chen Li is a professor in the Department of Computer Science at UC Irvine. He received his Ph.D. degree in Computer Science from Stanford University, and his M.S. and B.S. in Computer Science from Tsinghua University, China, respectively. He was a recipient of an NSF CAREER award and several test-of-time publication awards, a part-time visiting research scientist at Google, PC co-chair of VLDB 2015, an ACM distinguished member, and an IEEE fellow. Since January 2020, he’s the treasurer and a board member of the VLDB Endowment. From July 2020 to June 2024, he was the Faculty Director of the ICS Master of Computer Science Program. He was a co-founder and CTO of a startup to commercialize his research.
Research
My research interests are in the field of data management, including data-intensive computing, databases, query processing and optimization, machine learning-based systems, data science, search, visualization. My current focus is building open-source systems for big data management, data science, and AI/ML. My PhD thesis at Stanford was on data integration, with an emphasis on both theoretical and practical aspects. My recent research, especially after spending a few quarters at Google and a few years doing a startup as its founder and CTO, has a strong preference on engineering and open source system building. I believe “Computer Science” is a “Science” to support great engineering, and we need to build systems to stay relevant in this fast-paced IT era. My recent research projects are closely related to social media data analytics due to its increasing importance in many disciplines. Learn More …
Services
SIGMOD 2027 (General co-chair), VLDB Endowment 2020 – now (Treasurer and Board Member), SIGMOD 2025 (PC member), VLDB 2024 Reproducibility (PC member), VLDB 2023 (PC member), ICDE 2023 (General Chair), SIGMOD 2022 (PC member), VLDB 2021 (Associate Editor, Industrial co-Chair), ICDE 2021 (PC member), IEEE Big Data 2019 (Tutorial co-Chair), TKDE 2018-2022 (Associate Editor), VLDB 2015 (PC co-Chair).
News
- (11/20/24) I will give a Texera seminar in the Math department at UCI on Dec. 2.
- (11/16/24) Here’s the video with slides for the first session of the workshop of “Data Science for Everyone” at Cerritos College.
- (11/15/24) Our paper “IcedTea: Efficient and Responsive Time-Travel Debugging in Dataflow Systems” by Shengquan Ni, Yicong Huang, Zuozhi Wang, and Chen Li has been accepted by VLDB 2025.
- (11/6/24) Our team (led by Shengquan and Yicong) gave a lecture of data science using Texera for the “Data Science with Bioengineering Application” program at UCI. Here’s the video.
- (10/2024) Our team is organizing a two-Saturday workshop called “Workshop of Data Science for Everyone” on Nov. 16 and 23 at Cerritos College, in which we will use the Texera system to teach students and teachers data science and AI/ML.
- (10/31/2024) Attended the NIH/NIDDK workshop about Artificial Intelligence in Precision Medicine for Diabetes and Other Chronic Diseases and gave a talk about dkNet and its new computational core powered by Texera.
- (10/12/2024) Gave a talk about our Texera work at the CAST-USA’s 32nd Anniversary event in San Diego.
- (10/6/2024) I did my 9th half marathon in Long Beach today. Great to feel the energy and excitement at the event!
- (9/24) Welcome our new PhD students, Sarah Asad, Matthew George Ball, and Ali Risheh!
- (9/24) For the first time I am teaching CS 224P “Big Data Management.”
- (8/24) Check this blog about how Texera supports R UDF!
- (8/24) Invited by Prof. Yinghui Wu of Case Western Reserve University, I attended the 10th Annual Data Science in Engineering and Life Sciences Symposium. I gave a talk titled “Texera: A Computing Infrastructure for Workflow-Based Data Analyses and AI”.
- (8/24) Our paper titled “Pasta: A Cost-Based Optimizer for Generating Pipelining Schedules for Dataflow DAGs” has been accepted by SIGMOD 2025.
- (7/24) We successfully finished the second “Data Science for All” program to use Texera to teach high-school students data science and AI/ML. Check some nice photos!
- (7/24) Our paper titled “Texera: A System for Collaborative and Interactive Data Analytics Using Workflows [Scalable Data Science]” by Zuozhi Wang, Yicong Huang, Shengquan Ni, Avinash Kumar, Sadeem Alsudais, Xiaozhen Liu, Xinyuan Lin, Yunyan Ding, and Chen Li has been accepted by VLDB 2024 (“Scalable Data Science” track).
- (6/24) Our team received an ACM SIGMOD Best Demo Runner Up Award for the paper “Demonstration of Udon: Line-by-line Debugging of User-Defined Functions in Data Workflows” by Yicong Huang, Zuozhi Wang, and Chen Li.
- (6/24) Together with Prof. Cyrus Shahabi of USC, we will organize SIGMOD 2027 in Los Angeles as the General Chairs.
- (6/24) Honored to receive the 2024 ICS Dean’s Award for Graduate Student Education and Mentoring.
- (6/24) Together with colleagues from Cornell, UCLA, and UCSD, we received a 5-year award ($10M total) from NIH NIDDK titled “dkNET Coordinating Unit: Harnessing the Power of AI and Data Science forCollaborative Discovery and Sharing in the DK Community“.
- (5/24) We had a great ISG Reunion! It’s great to see many alumni at the event. Here’s the photo album.
- (4/24) Our team gave a dkNet webinar titled “Texera: A Scalable Cloud Computing Platform for Sharing Data and Workflow-Based Analyses”. Here is the video. We talked about how the Texera system can be used in the field of bioinformatics.
- (4/24) Our PhD student Yicong Huang received a UCI Graduate Dean’s Dissertation Fellowship. Congratulations!
- (3/24) Our Ph.D. student Yicong Huang is named 2023 Public Impact Fellow by UC Irvine. The fellowships highlight and support doctoral students whose current research has the potential for substantial impact in the public sphere. Congratulations!
- (2/24) In the spring quarter, together with our PhD students, Yicong Huang and Shengquan Ni, we will offer a new undergraduate course titled “ICS 80: Data Science and AI/ML Using Workflows.” We will use the Texera system in the course. Check the flyer and Canvas site.
- (1/24) For the second time, we will organize the NSF-funded Data Science for All summer program. We are accepting applications from high-school students.
- Past News