Meet Dr. Zhihui Zhu

Want to practice with datasets like Dr. Zhu recommends? Check out these:

Data.gov

CDC Open Data

Denver Gov Open Data

Prefer reading over video? Check out the transcript below.聽

Sedak Puri Hello, I'm Sedak Puri, I'm a current junior here at the University of Denver studying both computer science as well as finance. Here we are joined today with Dr. Zhu, who is a new faculty here at the Ritchie School of Engineering and Computer Science. So if you want to introduce yourself...聽

Zhihui Zhu I came to Colorado in 2013 and studied at the Colorado School of Mines, where I got my PhD in 2010. I was a postdoc at the Data Science Center for Imaging Science at Johns Hopkins University until I moved back to Denver.

SP You talked a lot about your path coming from Colorado School of Mines to Johns Hopkins University and then back to the University of Denver. What brought you specifically back to the University of Denver?

ZZ Well, I studied at the Colorado School of Mines for more than four years, so I really like the Denver area. Then when I was a postdoc at Johns Hopkins University, one day I received an email from Dr. Mohammad Mahoor, who said that DU is going to build a center on data science and AI. I feel this is a great opportunity to comeback to the Denver area and also to make a bigger contribution to this program. That's why I applied to this job and I came back.

SP So, outside of academia, do you have any kind of hobbies you want to talk about?

ZZ Yeah, so I like sports, particularly I play basketball. So I used to go to the gym several times a week so I feel sports and exercise is a good way to relax my mind and also in Colorado, I like mountains and hiking so I did hiking quite a bit when I was at Golden.

SP So, you know, a lot of students coming in are really interested by machine learning. It's a really growing field. Do you have any recommendations for these students on where to start when trying to get into this field?

ZZ Yeah, so I like data science and machine learning because it has a very deep mathematical foundation. So that's why I would recommend to first get a very solid mathematical background like probabilities and statistics and also you should have some programming skills like, learn how to use Python or Java. The next step would be to search online and find some interesting data and then play around with it. I think this one will be a very good step to get understanding of data science and machine learning.

SP So I wanted to thank Dr. Zhu for coming in today and I want to welcome you to the Ritchie School of Engineering and Computer Science

ZZ Sure. Thank you for your time having me.