PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Dit-Yan Yeung

Also known as Dit‐Yan Yeung, 楊瓞仁

Dit-Yan Yeung is a computer scientist whose machine learning research at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) ranges from recommender systems to rainfall forecasting. He earned a PhD in computer science at the University of Southern California in 1989, spent a year as an assistant professor at the Illinois Institute of Technology, and then joined HKUST's founding team. In 2014 he coauthored a collaborative deep learning model for recommender systems, and in collaboration with the Hong Kong Observatory he coauthored ConvLSTM in 2015 and TrajGRU in 2017 for precipitation nowcasting. He served as Head of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, and AMiner named him an AI 2000 Honorable Mention in data mining in 2022. As of 2026, he is a Professor Emeritus of Computer Science and Engineering at HKUST.

Born
1960

Years link to their sources.

Timeline

  1. 1989

    A PhD from USC

    After a BEng in electrical engineering and an MPhil in computer science at the University of Hong Kong, he earns a PhD in computer science from the University of Southern California in 1989. He starts his academic career as an assistant professor at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago.

  2. 1990s

    Joining HKUST's founding team

    After a year at the Illinois Institute of Technology, he joins the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, drawn by founding president Chia-Wei Woo's plan for the first research-focused university in Hong Kong. He is part of the university's founding team in the 1990s.

  3. 2014

    Collaborative deep learning for recommenders

    In 2014, he coauthors Collaborative Deep Learning for Recommender Systems with Hao Wang and Naiyan Wang. The paper proposes a hierarchical Bayesian model that jointly learns deep representations of item content and performs collaborative filtering on the ratings matrix.

  4. 2015

    ConvLSTM for rainfall nowcasting

    In 2015, he coauthors the ConvLSTM paper with Xingjian Shi and colleagues, which adds convolutional structure to the LSTM for precipitation nowcasting. The work comes from his group's collaboration with the Hong Kong Observatory, and ConvLSTM gives more accurate predictions than the Observatory's optical-flow algorithm on Hong Kong radar data.

  5. 2017

    TrajGRU and a nowcasting benchmark

    In 2017, he coauthors a NIPS spotlight paper that proposes TrajGRU, a model that learns location-variant recurrent connections. The paper also presents a precipitation nowcasting benchmark built on a large dataset from the Hong Kong Observatory.

  6. By 2019

    Head of computer science at HKUST

    By 2019, he is Head of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at HKUST, a post listed in the university's annual report for 2018–19. In 2022, the department still names him Chair Professor and Head.

  7. 2022

    An AI 2000 honorable mention

    In 2022, AMiner names him an AI 2000 Most Influential Scholar Honorable Mention in Data Mining, in recognition of his contributions to data mining between 2012 and 2021.

  8. As of October 2026

    Professor Emeritus at HKUST

    After about three and a half decades at HKUST, he is a Professor Emeritus of Computer Science and Engineering. In June 2026, he becomes the first HKUST faculty member to receive the 35-Year Long Service Award.

Career

  1. NowHong Kong University of Science and TechnologyFounding Team Member
  2. From 1989Illinois Institute of TechnologyAssistant Professor

Education

  1. 1989University of Southern CaliforniaPhD in Computer Science
  2. University of Hong KongBEng in Electrical Engineering

From the biography.

  1. More people shaping AI studied at Massachusetts Institute of Technology than at any other institutionIncludes Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. 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.
  2. The company share of AI researchers’ top papers was 31% in 2020–2024 and 8% in 1970–1974Includes Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. 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 Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. 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. The median h-index is 48 at universities and 14 at frontier AI labsIncludes Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. The median h-index is 48 at universities and 14 at frontier AI labs. We compare publishing careers, recent citations, dual appointments and job moves across 2,420 university researchers and 308 frontier-lab researchers.

Colleagues

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

Sources and credits

Photo: We have no published photo of Dit-Yan Yeung yet. Send us a free-licensed photo.

  1. Dit-Yan YEUNG | HKUST CSE cse.hkust.edu.hk. Checked 21 October 2026.
  2. 720-Degree Care: Prof. Dit-Yan Yeung’s 35-year HKUST Odyssey | HKUST hkust.edu.hk. Checked 21 October 2026.
  3. Collaborative Deep Learning for Recommender Systems arxiv.org. Checked 21 October 2026.
  4. Convolutional LSTM Network: A Machine Learning Approach for Precipitation Nowcasting arxiv.org. Checked 21 October 2026.
  5. Spatiotemporal Machine Learning Models for Precipitation Nowcasting | HKUST CSE cse.hkust.edu.hk. Checked 21 October 2026.
  6. Deep Learning for Precipitation Nowcasting: A Benchmark and A New Model arxiv.org. Checked 21 October 2026.
  7. HKUST Annual Report 2018-19 publications.ust.hk. Checked 21 October 2026.
  8. Prof. Dit-Yan Yeung Has Been Awarded "AI 2000 Most Influential Scholar Honorable Mention in Data Mining" | HKUST CSE cse.hkust.edu.hk. Checked 21 October 2026.