PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

Lexing Xie

Lexing Xie is a computer science researcher whose work applies machine learning to large-scale graphs, multimedia and social media. She earned a BS in electrical engineering at Tsinghua and a PhD in the field at Columbia, worked at IBM from 2005 to 2010, and joined ANU in December 2010. Her research at ANU includes social-media popularity and multimedia knowledge graphs; her papers include SentiCap and a model for forecasting video popularity. She won the 2018 Chris Wallace Award, received a 2023 ARC Future Fellowship, co-chaired ACM Multimedia in 2024 and coauthored MoVa in 2025. She is Professor of Computing at ANU and leads the Computational Media Lab and Integrated AI Network.

Badges

Timeline

  1. 2005–2010

    IBM Research and Columbia

    She works as a Research Staff Member at IBM T.J. Watson Research Center in New York from 2005 to 2010. She also serves as an Adjunct Assistant Professor at Columbia University from 2007 to 2009.

  2. December 2010

    Joining ANU

    She joins ANU in December 2010 after several years at IBM. Her research focuses on machine learning for large-scale graph data and collective behaviour, including social-media popularity and multimedia knowledge graphs. She holds a BS and a PhD, both in electrical engineering, from Tsinghua and Columbia, respectively.

  3. 2015–2016

    SentiCap and the Hawkes model

    In 2015, she coauthors SentiCap, which uses a switching recurrent neural network to generate image captions with positive or negative sentiments. In 2016, she coauthors the Hawkes intensity process model, which forecasts video popularity from social-media promotions.

  4. 2018

    Chris Wallace Award

    In 2018, she wins the Chris Wallace Award for Outstanding Research.

  5. 2023

    ARC Future Fellowship

    She receives a 2023 ARC Future Fellowship. Her research spans machine learning, computational social science and computational economics, including online optimization and social-media popularity.

  6. 2024–2025

    ACM Multimedia and MoVa

    She is Program Co-Chair of ACM Multimedia 2024. In 2025, she coauthors MoVa, a resource suite with 16 labeled datasets and an LLM prompting strategy for classifying human morals and values.

  7. As of October 2026

    Professor and AI network director

    She is Professor of Computing at ANU, where she leads the Computational Media Lab and directs the Integrated AI Network. In 2026, she convenes Statistical Machine Learning (COMP4670), an undergraduate course in the School of Computing.

Career

  1. Since 2010Australian National UniversityProfessor of Computing
  2. 2007–2009Columbia UniversityAdjunct Assistant Professor
  3. 2005–2010IBM ResearchResearch Staff Member

Education

  1. Tsinghua UniversityBS in electrical engineering
  2. Columbia UniversityPhD in electrical engineering

From the biography.

  1. The United States employs an estimated 48% of people shaping AIIncludes Australian National University. We estimate where the people shaping AI work today, how universities, companies and research institutes split across countries, and how country shares have changed since the 1960s.
  2. The median h-index is 48 at universities and 14 at frontier AI labsIncludes Australian National University. 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.
  3. More people shaping AI studied at Massachusetts Institute of Technology than at any other institutionIncludes Australian National University. 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.
  4. The company share of AI researchers’ top papers was 31% in 2020–2024 and 8% in 1970–1974Includes Australian National University. 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.

Colleagues

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

Sources and credits

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  1. Asia Faculty Summit 2016 - Microsoft Research microsoft.com. Checked 21 October 2026.
  2. Lexing Xie | ANU School of Computing comp.anu.edu.au. Checked 21 October 2026.
  3. SentiCap: Generating Image Descriptions with Sentiments arxiv.org. Checked 21 October 2026.
  4. Expecting to be HIP: Hawkes Intensity Processes for Social Media Popularity arxiv.org. Checked 21 October 2026.
  5. Lexing Xie | Integrated AI ai.anu.edu.au. Checked 21 October 2026.
  6. MoVa: Towards Generalizable Classification of Human Morals and Values - ACL Anthology aclanthology.org. Checked 21 October 2026.
  7. Statistical Machine Learning - ANU programsandcourses.anu.edu.au. Checked 21 October 2026.