Dr. Chao Tian

Dr. Chao TIAN

 

Associate Professor
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Texas A&M University
Email: chao Dot tian AT tamu DOT edu
Phone: 979-458-7822
Address: ROOM 301R, WEB Building, 3128 TAMU, College Station TX
Google Scholar & CV

Announcements and News

  • Seeking master students for thesis research in large language model (LLM), watermarking, data compression, and diffusion models.
  • Congratulations to Wenyuan for being one of the winners of the 2025 Departmental Student Research Poster presentation award!
  • Congratulations to Wenyuan for his first ML/AI paper accepted as AISTATS 2025; a preprint is here.
  • Dr. Tian is on a faculty development leave at MIT/Harvard this year; email is the more reliable method to reach him.
  • Dr. Tian was invited to give a plenary at ITA 2025 on “Transforms learn variable-order Markov chains in context”.
  • Our paper “Transforms learn variable-order Markov chains in context” was selected to receive the Best Paper Award at the Workshop on Machine Learning and Compression @ NeurIPS 2024!
  • Our paper “Staggered quantizers for perfect perceptual quality: A connection between quantizers with common randomness and without” was selected to receive the Best Paper Award at the first Learn to compress workshop @ ISIT 2024!
  • Dr. Tian gave IEEE ITSoc distinguished lectures at several IEEE local chapters in Europe and Asia in May and June 2024.
  • Congratulations to Ruida for winning the 2024 Association of Former Students Distinguished Graduate Student Award – Excellence in Research, the 2022-2023 Chevron Scholarship Award, and the 2023 ECEN Quality Graduate Student Award!!

Dr. Tian obtained his B.E degree from Tsinghua University, Beijing China, and his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from Cornell University, Ithaca NY. He worked at AT&T Labs-Research (previously known as the Shannon Labs) as a researcher on communication and signal processing for seven years, before returning to academia. He was with the University of Tennessee Knoxville for a few years before joining Texas A&M University.

  • Best Paper Award at Workshop on Machine Learning and Compression @ NeurIPS 2024: “Transforms learn variable-order Markov chains in context”.
  • Best Paper Award at the first ‘Learn to compress’ workshop @ ISIT 2024: “Staggered quantizers for perfect perceptual quality: A connection between quantizers with common randomness and without”.
  • 2023-2024 IEEE Information Theory Society Distinguished Lecturer.
  • 2022 ECE Department Star Faculty Award.
  • Coauthor of 2020-2021 IEEE Data Storage Best Student Paper Award (awarded in 2022): “Capacity-achieving private information retrieval codes from MDS-coded databases with minimum message size” in IEEE Trans. Inform. Theory 2020.
  • 2019 NetApp Faculty Fellowship.
  • Coauthor 2017 IEEE Jack Wolf ISIT Best Student Paper Award: “A generic transformation for optimal repair bandwidth and rebuilding access in MDS codes” in ISIT 2017.
  • 2014 IEEE Data Storage Best Paper Award: “Characterizing the rate-region of the (4,3,3) exact-repair regenerating codes” in IEEE JSAC May 2014.
  • AT&T Key Contributor Award: For technical contribution in AT&T / 2010, 2011, 2013.
  • Liu-Memorial Award, Cornell University: For excellence in graduate study and research / 2004.
Current Students

  • Yuting CAI
  • Yu-Shin HUANG
  • Peter JUST
  • Mohammad RAHIMI
  • Wenyuan ZHAO
Alumni
Postdoctoral Researcher
  • Tao GUO, ECE, TAMU, Dec. 2018-Apr. 2020; now Associate Professor at Southeast University, China.
Ph.D. Students
  • Kai ZHANG, Ph.D. degree ECE/TAMU, May 2020; now with MD Anderson.
  • Tianli ZHOU, Ph.D. degree CE/TAMU, May 2020; now with Google Inc.
  • Ruida ZHOU, Ph.D. degree ECE/TAMU, Aug. 2023; now with Amazon.com.
Master Students
  • Sara MOUSAVI, CS Master degree, UTK, Dec. 2017; obtained her CS Ph.D. degree at UTK in 2023.
  • Vineet GARG, ECE Master degree, TAMU, May 2019; now with Apple Inc.
  • Siqi FAN, ECE Master degree, TAMU, Dec. 2019; obtained his EE Ph.D. degree at TAMU in 2024.
  • Jianfeng SONG, ECE Master degree, TAMU, Dec. 2019; obtained his CE Ph.D. degree at TAMU in 2023.
  • Rachel YEH, ECE Master degree, TAMU, Dec. 2019; currently a software development engineer at Michaels.
  • Lizi ZHANG, ECE Master degree, TAMU, May 2020.
  • Tianrui CHEN, ECE Master degree, TAMU, Dec. 2021; currently a Ph.D. student at Northwestern Polytechnical University China.
  • Wenjing CHEN, ECE Master degree, TAMU, Dec. 2022.
  • Chandra Sekhar TEDLA, ECE Master degree, TAMU, May 2023; currently with Aira Techonologies Inc. CA
  • Tianle ZHANG, ECE Master degree, TAMU, Dec. 2024; currently pursuing Ph.D. degree at TAMU.
Visiting Students
  • Chengyuan QIAN, TAMU, Jun. 2021-Apr. 2022; currently a Ph.D. student at TAMU.
  • Min CHENG, visiting undergraduate student, University of Science and Technology of China; TAMU, Aug. 2019-Dec. 2019; currently a Ph.D. student at TAMU.
  • Zekuan ZHANG, visiting undergraduate student, Southeast University (China); TAMU, Jul. 2019-Sep. 2019.
  • Wenjing CHEN, visiting undergraduate student, University of Science and Technology of China; TAMU, Jul. 2018-Oct. 2018.
  • Lei ZHENG, visiting Ph.D. student, Southwest Jiaotong University; TAMU, Oct. 2017-Apr. 2019; currently Assistant Professor at Guangzhou University, China.
  • Jie LI, visiting Ph.D. student, Southwest Jiaotong University; UTK, Oct. 2015-Oct. 2016; now as Senior Researcher at Huawei Technology, Hong Kong.
Texas A&M University
  • ECEN 601: Mathematical Methods for Signal Processing / Fall 2022-2023
  • ECEN 689: Advanced Optimization Techniques and Analysis / Spring 2022, 2024
  • ECEN 629: Applied Convex Optimization / Spring 2018-2021
  • ECEN 446: Information Theory, Inference, and Learning / Spring 2018, Fall 2018, 2020-2023
  • ECEN 681: Department Seminar Series / Fall 2019, Spring 2020, Fall 2020
  • ECEN 314: Signal and Systems / Fall 2019
  • ECEN 681: ISS Seminar Series / Fall 2017, Spring 2018, Fall 2018
The University of Tennessee Knoxville
  • ECE 611: Convex Optimization / Fall 2016
  • ECE 342: Fundamentals of Communication / Spring 2016, Spring 2017
  • ECE 644: Codng and Information Theory / Fall 2015
  • ECE 342: Analog Communication, AM and FM / Fall 2014, Spring 2015
Columbia University
  • ELEN E6884: Topics in Data Compression / Spring 2011
  • ELEN E6718: Algebraic Coding Theory / Fall 2011, 2012, 2013
  • ELEN E6712: Communication Theory / Spring 2013
Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne
  • IC-62: Source Coding Theory and Practice / Winter 2006
Editorship
  • Guest Editor for IEEE Selected Areas on Communications-Special Issue on Rethinking the Information Identification, Representation, and Transmission Pipeline: New Approaches to Data Compression and Communication / 2023-2024
  • Editor for IEEE BITS Magazine (IEEE Information Theory Magazine) / 2024-
  • Guest Editor for IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Information Theory (JSAIT) on Distributed Coding and Computation / 2021-2022
  • Guest Editor for Entropy–Special Issue on Information Theory and Machine Learning / 2021
  • Guest Editor for IEEE Selected Areas on Communications-Special Issue on Private Information Retrieval, Private Coded Computing over Distributed Servers, and Privacy in Distributed Learning / 2020-2021
  • Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on Information Theory / Jan. 2020-Jan. 2023
  • Guest Editor for Entropy–Special Issue on Information and Coding for Distributed Storage / 2018-2019
  • Guest Editor for Science China–Special Issue on Distributed Storage Coding / 2018
  • Editor of IEEE Transactions on Communications / Jan. 2016-Jan. 2021
  • Associate Editor of IEEE Signal Processing Letters / Feb. 2012-Feb. 2014
Services
  • IEEE Information Theory Society Secretary / 2025-
  • IEEE Information Theory Society Conference Committee Member / 2024-
  • IEEE Information Theory Society Paper Award Committee Member / 2023-2024
  • IEEE Communication Society Data Storage Paper Award Committee Co-chair / 2018