Yifan Hu

Professor of the Practice

Yifan Hu
  • Data visualization
  • Machine learning
  • Artificial intelligence
  • Natural language processing and information retrieval
  • Network science
  • PhD in Optimization, Loughborough University — United Kingdom
  • MSc in Applied Mathematics, Shanghai Jiao Tong University — China
  • BSc in Applied Mathematics, Shanghai Jiao Tong University — China

Yifan Hu is a professor of the practice in the Khoury College of Computer Sciences at Northeastern University, based in Seattle.

Hu’s career has spanned three decades and included senior-level positions with industry giants like Amazon, Yahoo Research, AT&T Labs, and Wolfram Research. He is interested in information visualization, AI, machine learning, and natural language processing, and especially in whether successful methods from one of those domains can be applied to the others. While his research ranges from the focused and practical to the expansive and conceptual, it always stems from real-world problems.

In addition to his duties as an educator, Hu serves as associate editor for IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics. He has published more than 80 papers and earned numerous distinctions, including Best Paper at IEEE EuroVis (2016), Best Paper at the International Symposium on Graph Drawing and Network Visualization (2013), and 10-year highest impact paper at IEEE ICDM (2017). Hu is also named on 13 patents and has served on the National Science Foundation’s grant review panels.

One of Hu’s personal goals is to walk the Camino de Santiago.