Pan Hui

Last updated
Pan Hui
Pan Hui.jpg
Hui in 2020
Nationality Hong Kong SAR
Alma mater University of Cambridge
University of Hong Kong
Scientific career
Fields Mobile computing
Networking
Augmented reality
Data science
Institutions University of Helsinki
The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
Thesis People are the network: experimental design and evaluation of social-based forwarding algorithms  (2008)
Doctoral advisor Jon Crowcroft [1]

Pan Hui is a computer scientist at the University of Helsinki and The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST). Currently, he is a Chair Professor of Computational Media and Arts (CMA), a Chair Professor of Emerging Interdisciplinary Areas, Director of the Center for Metaverse and Computational Creativity, and also Director of the HKUST-DT Systems and Media Laboratory (SyMLab) at HKUST. He was elected as an International Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering (FREng) in 2020, [2] a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (FIEEE), [3] a Member of the Academia Europaea (MAE), [4] and a Distinguished Scientist of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). [5] He has been elected to the endowed professorship Nokia Chair in Data Science. [6]

Contents

Research

Hui is recognized as a foundational researcher in the field of networking and communications, especially in mobile computing and networking. His work spans a wide spectrum from foundational work on mobility characterization and networking approaches, to the design and development of software systems, to conceptualization and deployment of innovative applications. With the vision of a perceived virtual universe that is rich in 'Surreality', he has been leading the cutting-edge research on Metaverse, [7] making global impact on shaping the future of Metaverse development.

Opportunistic Networking

Hui has extensively contributed to the foundation of opportunistic networking, including empirical measurements, mobility modeling, bridging mobile networks with social networks, and innovative applications. He is considered a pioneer in bridging the mobile and social networks research fields. In particular, on the conceptual front, he elucidated the connection between social networks and mobile networks. On the empirical side, by measuring human mobility and contact patterns, he laid the foundation for the use of mobility traces as a means for validating models that are widely used for performance evaluation. His papers published at ACM SIGCOMM workshop 2005 [8] (over 1,350 citations by Jan 2023) and IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing 2007 [9] (over 2,030 citations by Jan 2023) empirically demonstrated that the human mobility inter-contact time follows a power-law distribution, rather than a commonly-believed exponential distribution.

Mobile Offloading

Hui's work in mobile offloading at Deutsche Telekom has resulted in three practical systems for mobile traffic offloading from cellular networks to both WiFi networks and device-to-device networks and also for computation offloading from smartphones and wearable devices to the cloud and edge servers. His ThinkAir paper on a mobile cloud offloading system [10] (a result from a Deutsche Telekom innovation development project), with over 1400 citations by Jan 2023, is the most cited paper in IEEE Infocom 2012 conference and the system is widely adopted by the mobile cloud/edge computing community.

Metaverse

In terms of metaverse, Hui envisions a perceived virtual universe that is rich in 'Surreality', and is a result of a series of connected, shared, and concurrent 3D virtual spaces that are self-sustaining. Following this vision, he has been leading the Metaverse research that makes a global impact on shaping the future of Metaverse development. In terms of technology, his bottom-up approach to Augmented Reality (AR) research has resulted in an open software CloudAR which contains a platform and an SDK to speed up mobile AR development by an order of magnitude. [11] He has also invented many innovative AR/VR applications including augmented driving, gesture control, social interaction, visual privacy protection, and assisted applications for the elderly and the visually impaired.

He proposed and defined the concept of "Metaformation" (or "Meta-shaping") as the process of transforming physical space into a hybrid physical-digital Metaverse, which facilitates the cohabitation of both human and digital natives, wherein the virtual world interacts and coexists with the physical world and results in a highly engaging and seamless experience. [12] He also served as a member in the Global Future Council on the Future of Metaverse in the World Economic Forum. [13]

Hui is leading one of the key projects at HKUST, 'MetaHKUST', [14] to bring two HKUST campuses (Clear Water Bay and Guangzhou) together and consolidate the real and virtual experience in one platform. The MetaHKUST project is receiving international press coverage and highlights the use of the metaverse in the education and learning industry. [15] [16] In 2024, Hui led a team to introduce Asia's First 'AI Lecturers' in Class. [17] [18] [19] They develop 10 AI lecturers with different combinations of gender, age, and race using a self-developed variational 3D full-body generator combined with multiple AI tools including Midjourney, ChatGPT, Sadtalker, and the team's enhanced version of the open-source 3D facial animation tool EmoTalk. In his 'Social Media for Creatives' course, these AI lecturers are used to teach 30 postgraduate students about immersive technologies and the impact of digital platforms.

Related Research Articles

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References

  1. "Phd Family Tree of Jon's" . Retrieved 2 Dec 2020.
  2. "Pan Hui (Finland)".
  3. "IEEE Computer Society Members Elevated to Fellow for 2018". 12 April 2018. Retrieved 7 October 2020.
  4. "Academy of Europe: Hui Pan" . Retrieved 7 October 2020.
  5. "Pan Hui ACM Distinguished Member" . Retrieved 7 October 2020.
  6. "Nokia Bell labs partner".
  7. "Unlocking the Metaverse inside Our Universe | News - The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology". news.hkust.edu.hk. Retrieved 2022-12-30.
  8. Hui, Pan; Chaintreau, Augustin; Scott, James; Gass, Richard; Crowcroft, Jon; Diot, Christophe (2005). "Pocket switched networks and human mobility in conference environments". Proceeding of the 2005 ACM SIGCOMM workshop on Delay-tolerant networking - WDTN '05. New York, New York, USA: ACM Press. pp. 244–251. doi: 10.1145/1080139.1080142 . ISBN   1595930264.
  9. Chaintreau, Augustin; Hui, Pan; Crowcroft, Jon; Diot, Christophe; Gass, Richard; Scott, James (2007). "Impact of Human Mobility on Opportunistic Forwarding Algorithms". IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing. 6 (6). Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE): 606–620. CiteSeerX   10.1.1.123.8177 . doi:10.1109/tmc.2007.1060. ISSN   1536-1233. S2CID   206745317.
  10. Kosta, Sokol; Aucinas, Andrius; Mortier, Richard (2012). "ThinkAir: Dynamic resource allocation and parallel execution in the cloud for mobile code offloading". 2012 Proceedings IEEE INFOCOM. IEEE. pp. 945–953. CiteSeerX   10.1.1.455.1869 . doi:10.1109/infcom.2012.6195845. ISBN   978-1-4673-0775-8.
  11. Zhang, Wenxiao; Lin, Sikun; Bijarbooneh, Farshid Hassani; Cheng, Hao Fei; Hui, Pan (2017-10-23). "CloudAR". Proceedings of the on Thematic Workshops of ACM Multimedia 2017. New York, NY, USA: ACM. pp. 194–200. doi:10.1145/3126686.3126739. ISBN   9781450354165.
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