Information for Prospective Students (Updated in 2024.03)

Research Group:

Thanks for your interest in joining our group and collaborating with me. We are building the new group now, and it would be exciting to be one of the founding members. The research interests of our group lie in broad computer vision, machine learning, artificial intelligence, multimedia, and natural language processing. Thus, don’t hesitate to reach out if your only concern is about the research topics. Please read the following information before contacting me.

I will read every email but I may only reply to those with a good match. Meanwhile, due to the busy schedule, it may take some days/weeks for response. Thanks for your time again.

Besides, for Hong Kong local students and international students (except Mainland China, Macau, and Taiwan), please also highlight your nationality in the email.

What I can offer to you?

• Good research environment consists of innovative research ideas for top-tier conferences/journals, and sufficient computational resources.
• For junior students, I will provide first-hand research guidance on developing their research skills, eg, weekly 1v1 meetings which can help them to grow up fast.
• For senior students/postdocs, I will help you to develop your mentorship and leadership by co-advising some students and leading some projects, which can help them to become independent researchers.
• For all my students, I will try my best to expand your connections in both academia and industry. Thus, I will refer you to some potential visiting/internship opportunities in top research labs in both companies (eg, Meta, Google, Amazon, Apple, Tencent, Alibaba, Bytedance) or other top universities (eg, Columbia, U of Toronto, UIUC, NUS, NTU).

If you have any specific questions about the mentoring styles, a relatively objective solution is asking (by emails) exisitng or past members in our groups.

General Requirements

• Enjoy research
• Optimistic and positive life attitude
• Work smart and self-motivated

Ph.D. Students

The detailed deadlines and basic English language admission requirements for the Ph.D. applications at HKUST can be found on the official website: https://prog-crs.hkust.edu.hk/pgprog/2024-25/mphil-phd-cse.

Qualifications:

• For master students, you should at least have one first-author (or co-first author) publication or submission in mainstream top-tier CV/AI/NLP conferences (such as CVPR, ICCV, ECCV, ICLR, NeurIPS, ICML, ACL, EMNLP, ACM MM, AAAI, IJCAI, SIGIR, and so on) or journals (such as TPAMI, IJCV, TIP, TNNLS, TCSVT, TMM, TOMM, and so on).
• For undergraduate students, you should show your excellence from at least one following aspect: 1) You have strong learning ability, such as a high GPA ranking among your cohort. 2) You have rich research experiences, such as research publications or internship experience. 3) You have excellent coding ability, such as experience in ACM ICPC.

Any interested candidates can directly send me your CV, undergraduate transcripts, reference letter (strongly encouraged), a short 2-page research statement (strongly encouraged), representative publications (if any), and selected projects/GitHub repos (if any) by email first. It would be better to describe your motivations in the email (especially why you think we’d be a good match). The subject for your inquiry email can be [PhD -- YEAR –- YOUR UNIVERSITY -- NAME] (e.g., [PhD – 2025 Fall – HKUST – Long Chen]).

Visiting Students

We always welcome visiting students or research assistants for a wide range of collaboration.

Qualifications:

• Typically, for visiting students, you should be a current Ph.D./master/undergraduate student in another university.
• The duration is typically 6 months.
• For PhD/master student, you should have at least one first-author publication in mainstream top-tier CV/AI/NLP conferences and journals.

Any interested candidates can directly send me your CV and representative publications (if any), and transcripts (for undergraduate students) by email. Please highlight the source funding support in the email, such as the funding from my part (HKUST) or other agencies (such as your own university). It would be better to shortly introduce how your research matches or complements our group’s research interests. The subject for your inquiry email can be [Visiting -- YOUR UNIVERSITY —- NAME -- DURATION -- STARTING TIME] (e.g. [Visiting – HKUST – Long Chen – 6 months – 2025 Jan]).

Postdocs/Research Scientists

Qualifications:

• Ph.D. degree in computer science, electrical engineering, or related fields, with relevant specialization.
• Strong record of first-author publication in mainstream top-tier CV/AI/NLP conferences or journals.
• Proficient in English. Strong written and verbal communication skills.

The typical duration for a postdoc is at least 1 year. Of course, we can further discuss extending the contract if you are planning to stay longer. Any interested candidates can directly send me your CV, reference letters, and a research statement by email. It would be better to highlight the name of 2-3 your collaborators (such as your Ph.D. advisor or other professors) who can comprehensively evaluate your research ability. The subject for your inquiry email can be [Postdoc – YOUR UNIVERSITY -- NAME -- STARTING TIME] (e.g. [Postdoc – HKUST – Long Chen – 2025 Fall]).

Current HKUST Students

For both MS students and undergraduates, please directly send me your CV and transcripts. The subject for your inquiry email can be [HKUST -- MS/UG -- YEAR -- NAME] (e.g. [HKUST – UG – Y3 – Long Chen]). Typically, UG students can enroll into the UROP program or FYP/FYT (for Year-4 students).

Other Collaborations

For external Ph.D./MS students in other universities, you should obtain approval for your advisor first. The collaboration could be either onsite or remote. Please directly send me your CV. The subject for your inquiry email can be [Remote/Onsite-Collaboration –- YOUR UNIVERSITY -- Ph.D./MS -- NAME] (e.g., [Remote Collation – HKUST –Ph.D. – Long Chen]).