PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Chris H. Q. Ding

Also known as C. Ding, C. H. Q. Ding, C.H.Q. Ding, CHRIS DING, 丁宏强

Chris Ding is a researcher whose work spans machine learning, data mining, bioinformatics and web link analysis. He studied computer science at Anhui University and Columbia, then worked at Caltech, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory before becoming a professor at the University of Texas at Arlington. His work linked PageRank and HITS to web structure, related nonnegative matrix factorization to K-means clustering, and applied mRMR to microarray gene selection; he also introduced the L21 norm. JPL, ICMLA and UT Arlington recognized work from his career with awards in 1996, 2006 and 2014. As of October 2026, he is a Presidential Chair Professor in the School of Data Science at CUHK (Shenzhen).

Works
364
Citations
27,819
h-index
70
Badges

Publication numbers from OpenAlex, as of 22 October 2026.

Timeline

  1. 1977–1987

    Anhui and Columbia degrees

    He earns a B.S. in computer science at Anhui University in 1981, then completes an M.A., M.Phil. and Ph.D. at Columbia by 1987. At Columbia, he helps build a parallel computer that appears on a Science cover.

  2. 1987–1996

    Caltech and JPL computing

    From 1987 to 1993, he works at Caltech, where he studies high-temperature superconductors with Monte Carlo simulations. He joins NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in 1993, develops algorithms for climate data assimilation, sparse matrix solvers and parallel graph partitioning, and receives a NASA Group Achievement Award from JPL in 1996.

  3. 1996–2007

    PageRank and web ranking

    At Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory from 1996 to 2007, he and collaborators show that PageRank is essentially a ranking by link in-degree. In 2002, he and four coauthors publish a framework that combines PageRank and HITS.

  4. 2005

    NMF and K-means clustering

    In 2005, he, Xiaofeng He and Horst D. Simon show that nonnegative matrix factorization is equivalent to K-means clustering.

  5. 2005

    mRMR gene selection

    With Hanchuan Peng, he publishes a 2005 paper applying minimum redundancy maximum relevance feature selection to microarray gene data.

  6. 2006

    The L21 norm

    He proposes the L21 matrix norm in 2006, a measure used across AI, machine learning, computer vision and computational biology. His coauthored supernova-recognition paper wins ICMLA's Best Application Paper Award in 2006.

  7. 2007–2020

    Professor at UT Arlington

    He serves as a professor in UT Arlington's Department of Computer Science and Engineering from 2007 to 2020. He receives UT Arlington's Outstanding Research Award in 2014.

  8. As of October 2026

    Presidential Chair Professor

    As of October 2026, he is a Presidential Chair Professor in the School of Data Science at CUHK (Shenzhen). His research spans machine learning, data mining, bioinformatics, information retrieval, web link analysis and high-performance computing.

Career

  1. Since 2021Chinese University of Hong Kong, ShenzhenPresidential Chair Professor
  2. 2022–2026Chinese University of Hong Kong
  3. 2011–2017Anhui University
  4. 2007–2020University of Texas at ArlingtonProfessor
  5. 1998–2007University of California, Berkeley
  6. 1996–2007Office of Science
  7. 1993–1996NASA
  8. 1987–1993California Institute of Technology

Education

  1. 1987Columbia UniversityM.A., M.Phil. and Ph.D.
  2. 1981Anhui UniversityB.S. in computer science

From the biography and OpenAlex affiliations (the years of papers that list the organization), so some years are approximate.

  1. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology trained or employed 44 of the 187 AI major-prize winners, more than any other universityIncludes Chris H. Q. Ding. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology trained or employed 44 of the 187 AI major-prize winners, more than any other university. We compare doctorate and 5+ year employment links, career timing and current workplaces for 187 major-prize and 1,111 best-paper winners.
  2. The company share of AI researchers’ top papers was 31% in 2020–2024 and 8% in 1970–1974Includes Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen. We estimate where the people shaping AI worked when their most-cited papers appeared: the company share was 31% in 2020–2024 and 8% in 1970–1974, and Google led all organizations in 2020–2024.
  3. Google has the highest combined h-index among AI organizationsIncludes Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen. We estimate that Google holds the highest combined h-index at 8,016, while universities account for 73% of the deduplicated total across AI organizations.
  4. More people shaping AI studied at Massachusetts Institute of Technology than at any other institutionIncludes University of California, Berkeley. We estimate where the people shaping AI studied and where their careers led. Massachusetts Institute of Technology leads with 467 former students, including 291 recorded doctorates.

Colleagues

People with dated positions at the same organization in the same years.

Sources and credits

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  1. DING, Chris H.Q. | MSc Programme in Data Science mscds.cuhk.edu.cn. Checked 21 October 2026.
  2. Achievements - Presidential Chair Professor myweb.cuhk.edu.cn. Checked 21 October 2026.
  3. Index - Presidential Chair Professor myweb.cuhk.edu.cn. Checked 21 October 2026.
  4. PageRank, HITS and a unified framework for link analysis (Conference) | OSTI.GOV osti.gov. Checked 21 October 2026.
  5. Chris Ding at University of Texas ranger.uta.edu. Checked 21 October 2026.
  6. Chris Ding Publications ranger.uta.edu. Checked 21 October 2026.
  7. mRMR Feature Selection Site home.penglab.com. Checked 21 October 2026.