Zhou Yu Named to FORBES “30 Under 30” in Science

By Aditi Risbud Bartl, originally posted by UC Davis Engineering.

Zhou Yu, an assistant professor of computer science at the University of California, Davis, was recognized in FORBES’ 2018 “30 Under 30” in Science list.

Yu was cited for her research in developing algorithms that enable software to adapt to users, such as a social chatbot for Amazon’s Echo platform. She joined the college earlier this year as an assistant professor after completing a Ph.D. in computer science at Carnegie Mellon University.

“It is an honor to receive the recognition with other inspiring peers,” said Yu. “This is really exciting as it is an opportunity for me to open the channel to enable people not only in my academic field to know my group’s interesting research, but also for the general public to know where conversational AI technology can take us.”

Her research focus is in designing algorithms for real-time intelligent interactive systems, or dialog systems, that coordinate with user actions beyond spoken languages, including non-verbal behaviors to achieve effective and natural communications.

“The central focus of my research is to bring together all the areas above to design, implement and deploy end-to-end real-time interactive intelligent systems that can plan globally and adapt to individual users short-term and long-term to achieve better user experience and task performance,” adds Yu.

The FORBES 30 Under 30 in Science list was created using nominations from a variety of sources. The judges for this category were Sabrina Pasterski, a Ph.D. candidate in physics at Harvard University and alum of the 2015 Under 30 list; and Dr. Danielle Bassett, a physicist and neuroscientist at the University of Pennsylvania.

Read more about Yu and all the winners here.