Hong Jia
Lecturer (Assistant Professor) at University of Auckland
Honorary Senior Fellow at University of Melbourne
hong.jia AT auckland.ac.nz
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Biography
I am a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) at the University of Auckland and an Honorary Senior Fellow at the University of Melbourne. Previously, I was a Research Associate (2021-2024) at the University of Cambridge. I obtained my Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of New South Wales (UNSW) in 2021.
My research focuses on AI algorithms and machine learning systems for ubiquitous edge devices. I have served as a PC and reviewer for top-tier journals and conferences, including NeurIPS, ICLR, ICML, AAAI, IJCAI, ACM IMWUT/UbiComp, ACM IPSN, ACM SenSys, and more. My research contributions have been recognized in the field with several awards, including ACM MobiSys Rising Star from ACM SIGMOBILE 2023, Best Paper Runner-Up Award at ACM IPSN 2024, and Best Poster Runner-Up Award at ACM MobiCom 2022. More information about my publications can be found in my Google Scholar.
I welcome highly-motivated students with solid machine learning. If you would like to work with me, please email a short note on your background and research interests, and attach your CV, transcripts, and any prior research papers.
- To students at the University of Auckland: For master's thesis supervision, I prefer to mentor students who are genuinely committed to pursuing a research career. Please reach out with your transcript and CV.
- To PhD students: I am looking for self-motivated PhD students to join my research group. Scholarships are available. Due to a large number of inquiries, I may not be able to respond to all emails. I will reach out only if I think you are a top candidate and a strong fit for my group.
- To visiting scholar/PhD students: Please drop me an email if your research area overlaps with mine.
Research Areas
- Edge and Embodied AI Systems: On-device, uncertainty-aware, and human-centred and robotic AI for trustworthy interaction, decision-making, and autonomy.
- Efficient LLMs, Reasoning, and Scaling: Test-time scaling, reasoning and scaling strategies for efficient LLMs.
- Machine Learning for Health: Design machine learning algorithms and systems for digital health systems, including mobile and wearable sensing to enable personalised health monitoring, risk prediction, and timely intervention in real-world settings.
News and Highlights
Invited to serve as a TPC member for ACM MobiCom 2027.
One paper was accepted at ECCV 2026.
Co-chairing the Wellcomp 2026 and AI Privacy workshops, collocated with UbiComp 2026. Please consider submitting your papers!
Four papers were accepted at Interspeech 2026.
Two papers were accepted at ICML 2026.
Invited to serve as a Workshop Chair for AJCAI 2026.
We have released the Code of HoRD.
One paper was accepted by Pervasive and Mobile Computing (PMCJ).
Honored to be selected as the ACM TOSN Distinguished Reviewer.
Three papers were accepted at ICASSP 2026.
One paper was accepted at WWW 2026.
Invited to join the editor board of ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies (IMWUT/UbiComp).
One paper was accepted by ACM Transactions on Computing for Healthcare.
We are organizing the 2nd International Workshop on Mobile Computing with Efficient and Interactive Foundation Models (EIFCom) in conjunction with MobiSys 2026 at Cambridge, UK. Please consider submitting your papers!
Our work "Menta: A Small Language Model for On-Device Mental Health Prediction" has been released. Ref: HuggingFace Papers, Checkpoint, and Code.
Four papers were accepted at NeurIPS 2025.
One paper was accepted by NeurIPS GenAI4Health.
Invited to serve as a TPC member for ICLR 2026, WWW 2026, MobiSys 2026, and ACM SenSys 2026.
One paper was accepted by ACII LBR Track.
Invited to serve as a TPC member for ACM SenSys 2026.
One paper was accepted by International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS 2025).
I will be joining the University of Auckland as a Lecturer in July 2025!
One paper was accepted at Interspeech 2025.
Chairing the eighth ACM WellComp 2025 workshop, collocated with ACM IMWUT 2025 in Espoo, Finland. Please consider submitting your work!
Serve as a PC member for NeurIPS 2025, ECAI 2025, and Artifacts Evaluation PC member at ACM MobiCom 2025.
One paper was accepted by IEEE Internet of Things Journal.
One paper was accepted by ACM SenSys 2025.
One paper was accepted by IEEE Pervasive Computing.
Invited to serve as a TPC member at ACM MobiSys 2025 .
One paper was accepted by NeurIPS 2024.
A grant worth $11,064 from the Google Research Fund was awarded.
Serve as a PC member for Artifacts Evaluation at ACM SenSys 2024 .
One paper was accepted by Mental Health workshops in conjunction with UbiComp 2024.
One paper was accepted by ACM CIKM 2024.
One paper was accepted by WellComp 2024 in conjunction with UbiComp 2024.
Invited talk "Mobile HCI via Edge Intelligence" at UNSW.
Two demo papers were accepted by UbiComp 2024.
One paper was awarded the Best Paper Award Runner-up (2/93) by IPSN 2024.
Invited to serve as a TPC member in WellComp 2024, in conjunction with UbiComp 2024.
General Chair and Organizer of the 1st Mobile Computing with Efficient and Interactive Foundation Models (EIFCom) workshop in conjunction with MobiCom 2024.
Invited to serve as Guest Editor of 'Recent Advances in Signal Processing for Flexible and Wearable Electronics' at MDPI Electronics
I have joined the University of Melbourne as a Research Fellow, working with Prof. Vassilis Kostakos. Happy to be back in Australia with my family!
One paper was conditionally accepted by IPSN 2024.
One paper was accepted by PerCom 2024.
One paper was accepted by SenSys 2023.
Reviewer/TPC for NeurIPS, TMC, TheWebConf, EWSN, UbiComp, IPSN etc.
One paper was accepted by IMWUT/UbiComp 2023.
One paper was accepted by ML4H, NeurIPS 2023.
Talk at MobiSys 2023 with the topic "Ubiquitous, Secure, and Efficient Mobile Sensing Systems".
I am honored to be selected as the ACM MobiSys Rising Star (2023) .
One paper was accepted by TOSN 2023.
One paper was accepted by IMWUT/UbiComp 2023.
One paper was accepted by IEEE Internet of Things Journal.
One paper was accepted by ML4H 2022.
One poster paper was awarded the Best Poster Runner-up Award (2/36) by MobiCom 2022.
One paper was accepted by MobiCom 2022.