Zhihan JIANG

Postdoctoral Researcher
Columbia University
jiang-zh@outlook.com

Email Github Google Scholar LinkedIn X

News

  • May 2026: Our tutorial "From Multimodal Sensing Data to Actionable Health Insights: A Hands-on Guide to Prototyping Your Personal LLM Health Agent" has been accepted at ACM UbiComp/ISWC 2026! I'll serve as lead organizer and lecturer alongside a wonderful team. See you in Shanghai this October!
  • May 2026: I gave a talk on multimodal sensemaking for health and well-being at the Human-Centered AI Lab (NEU HAI), Northeastern University, hosted by Prof. Dakuo Wang. Thanks for the engaging discussion!
  • Apr 2026: Our work on Lightweight Blockchain for Secure and Efficient Federated Lifelong Learning in IoT has been accepted to IEEE Transactions on Networking! Congrats to Handi!
  • Apr 2026: We won the Best Poster Award at the Everyday Wearable for Personalized Health and Well-Being Workshop @ CHI 2026 for our work on a personalized AI digital pet on a smartwatch for everyday cannabis use disorder support!
  • Mar 2026: Excited to share that our research project has received the Google Cloud Research Credit Award. Thank you to Google for the generous support!
  • Mar, 2026: ๐Ÿ… Our papers Hear You in Silence and MindfulAgents have both received Best Paper Honorable Mention Awards at CHI 2026! Many thanks to all collaborators!
  • Feb, 2026: Our survey on causality with federated learning has been accepted by TKDD! In this survey, we discuss how federated learning enable decentralized causal analysis and how causality tackles federated challenges. Congrats to Jing!
  • Feb, 2026: Our paper on dietary monitoring and personalized analysis using AI glasses has been accepted to ACM Transactions on Computing for Healthcare (ACM HEALTH)!
  • Jan, 2026: Our paper on designing for active listening in humanโ€“conversational agent interaction using context-aware pacing has been conditionally accepted to CHI 2026. Many thanks to Prof. RAY LC, Qianhui, Chu, and Lydia!
  • Jan, 2026: Our paper on multi-agent systems for personalized mindfulness meditation has been conditionally accepted to CHI 2026! Congrats to Millie!
  • Dec, 2025: Excited to share that our research project has received the NVIDIA Academic Grant. Thank you to NVIDIA for the generous compute support!
  • Oct, 2025: Our paper on ultra-sensitive ion detection, which combines nanomaterial chemistry and advanced optical physics, has been accepted by Advanced Functional Materials (Top materials science journal, IF=19.0). This work represents a fantastic, year-long interdisciplinary effort. Congratulations to Ran & Prof. Zhao's team!
  • Aug, 2025: I will be starting a new position as a Postdoctoral Research Scientist in Prof. Xuhai "Orson" Xu's SEA Lab!
  • Aug, 2025: I'm thrilled to announce that I am officially Dr. Jiang! ๐ŸŽ‰ This achievement would not have been possible without the invaluable guidance and unwavering support of my PhD supervisor, Prof. Edith C.H. Ngai.
  • Jul, 2025: Our paper about a system converting instructional videos to interactable notes through multimodal understanding has been accepted by UIST 2025! See you in Busan, Korea! Feel free to reach out for any conversation.
  • Mar, 2025: Our paper about connectivity determination algorithm for complex directed networks is accepted by IEEE TNSE. Congrat to Zhiyi and Lin!
  • Feb, 2025: Our paper about the opportunities and challenges in Edge General Intelligence is accepted by IEEE Network Magazine. Congrat to Handi and Weipeng!
  • Dec, 2024: Our paper about continual learning with strategic selection and forgetting for network intrusion detection is accepted by Infocom 2025. Congrat to Xinchen!
  • Nov, 2024: Our feasibility study for diagnosing Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) in adolescents using commercial activity trackers has been accepted by Journal of American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry Open. Many thanks to Adrienne & Prof. Wong's team (Department of Pharmacology and Pharmacy @ HKU)!
  • Oct, 2024: Our paper about a lightweight blockchain for verifiable and scalable federated learning in massive edge networks is accepted by IEEE TMC. Congrat to Handi!
  • July, 2024: I am very happy and honored to have been selected as one of the recipients of the HKU Foundation First Year Excellent PhD Award!
  • Jun, 2024: I give a talk at Tam Wing Fan Innovation Wing Two @ HKU titled "Empowering Pervasive Healthcare: Mobile Analytics Systems Leveraging Multimodal Data". [Poster]
  • Jun, 2024: Our paper about an anomaly detection system using isomorphic analysis for false data injection attacks in industrial control systems is accepted by Journal of the Franklin Institute. Congrat to Xinchen!
  • Apr, 2024: Our paper about an open-environment robot management system for on-campus services is accepted by ACM IMWUT 2024. Congrat to Yufei & Prof. Chen's team!
  • Jan, 2024: Our paper about internal cross-layer gradients for extending homogeneity to heterogeneity in Federated Learning is accepted by ICLR 2024. Congrat to Yun-Hin! [OpenReview]
  • Dec, 2023: Our paper about an autonomous online framework with contrastive learning for intrusion detection is accepted by Infocom 2024. Congrat to Xinchen!
  • Dec, 2023: News release of our work on Health Inference System during School Closures on @HKUniversity on Twitter ๐Ÿ“ข! [Link]
  • Oct, 2023: Presented our work HealthPrism at IEEE VIS 2023 ๐Ÿ˜„! [Demo]
  • Oct, 2023: Presented our work at UbiComp 2023. It was the first time I presented at an international conference๐Ÿ˜„! [Presentations][Poster]
  • Sep, 2023: One survey paper about disease diagnoses using wearable devices and machine learning is accepted by IEEE IoTJ!
  • Aug, 2023: I give a talk at MARS Group @ Xiamen University titled "Interactive Visual Analytics for Healthcare with Multimodal Data".
  • July, 2023: Our paper about the stability of stochastic finite-field networks is accepted by IEEE TCNS. Congrat to Lin & Prof. Lam!
  • July, 2023: Our paper about predicting the queue state of hospital emergency department using crowdsensing mobility data-driven models is accepted by ACM IMWUT 2023. Congrat to Tieqi & Prof. Chen's team!
  • July, 2023: One paper about visual analytics of children's health with multimodal data is accepted by IEEE VIS 2023. See you in Melbourne, Australia!
  • June, 2023: Present a poster at Ambient AI Workshop @ ICASSP2023, Rhodes, Greece.
  • May, 2023: Pass the RPG probationary interview! My Ph.D. candidature is confirmed on 01 March 2023.
  • Jan, 2023: One paper about children's health inference during school closures is accepted by ACM IMWUT 2023. Many thanks to Prof. Ip's team (Department of Paediatrics & Adolescent Medicine @ HKU)! See you in UbiComp/ISWC 2023 at Cancun, Mexico!
  • Aug, 2022: One paper about understanding driversโ€™ visual and comprehension Loads in traffic violation hotspots is accepted by IEEE TITS 2022!
  • Aug, 2022: One paper about identifying the high-risk population for COVID-19 transmission in Hong Kong is accepted by Healthcare 2022. Many thanks to Ka Man & Dr. So's team (Department of Paediatrics & Adolescent Medicine @ HKU)!
  • May, 2022: Our paper about graph-based demand modeling and station rebalancing for bike sharing system is accepted by IEEE TMC 2022. Congrat to Hang & Prof. Chen's team!
  • Feb, 2022: Our paper about personalized visual aid for appearance building products selection is accepted by CHI 2022. Congrat to Chuhan & Prof. Ma!
  • Sept, 2021: Attend the virtual conference UbiComp/ISWC 2021.
  • Sept, 2021: Join Dr. Ngai's IoT Lab to pursue Ph.D. degree at the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, HKU.

About Me

Hello, I'm Zhihan Jiang (่’‹ไน‹ๆ™—), a Postdoctoral Research Scientist at the SEA Lab in the Department of Biomedical Informatics (DBMI) at Columbia University, working with Prof. Xuhai "Orson" Xu. Previously, I received my Ph.D. in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from The University of Hong Kong (Advisor: Prof. Edith C.H. Ngai), and B.E./M.E. in Computer Science and Technology from Xiamen University (Advisor: Prof. Longbiao Chen).

My research journey began with mining heterogeneous spatiotemporal data to model large-scale urban dynamics, a body of work fundamentally about understanding people's behavior within complex urban environments. This human-centric perspective naturally extended my focus toward personal health and well-being.

Currently, I design and build multimodal sensemaking systems for health and well-being. By integrating multimodal sensing, generative AI, and interactive visual analytics, I empower individuals and experts to turn heterogeneous data into actionable understanding. My research lies at the intersection of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), Data Visualization (VIS), and Ubiquitous Computing (UbiComp).

I always welcome the opportunity for research collaboration and I'm eager to explore potential research ideas. If you're interested, please feel free to drop me an email.

Selected Publications [Click here to view the full list] [Google Scholar]

(* indicates equal contribution)

[CHI'26a] ๐Ÿ… Best Paper Honorable Mention
Zhihan Jiang, Qianhui Chen, Chu Zhang, Yanheng Li, RAY LC.
Hear You in Silence: Designing for Active Listening in Human Interaction with Conversational Agents Using Context-Aware Pacing.
[website][arXiv]
[ACM HEALTH'26]
Zhihan Jiang*, Running Zhao*, Lin Lin, Yue Yu, Handi Chen, Xinchen Zhang, Xuhai Xu, Yifang Wang, Xiaojuan Ma, Edith CH Ngai.
DietGlance: Dietary Monitoring and Personalized Analysis at a Glance with Knowledge-Empowered AI Assistant.
[link][arXiv]
[CHI'26b] ๐Ÿ… Best Paper Honorable Mention
Mengyuan Wu, Zhihan Jiang*, Yuang Fan*, Richard Feng, Sahiti Dharmavaram, Mathew Polowitz, Shawn Fallon, Bashima Islam, Lizbeth Benson, Irene Tung, David Creswell, Xuhai Xu.
MindfulAgents: Personalizing Mindfulness Meditation via an Expert-Aligned Multi-Agent System.
[website]
[UIST'25]
Running Zhao*, Zhihan Jiang*, Xinchen Zhang, Chirui Chang, Handi Chen, Weipeng Deng, Luyao Jin, Xiaojuan Qi, Xun Qian, Edith CH Ngai.
NoteIt: A System Converting Instructional Videos to Interactable Notes Through Multimodal Video Understanding.
[website][demo][arXiv]
[JAACAPOpen'24]
Zhihan Jiang*, Adrienne Y.L. Chan*, Dawn Lum, Kirstie HTY Wong, Janice CN Leung, Patrick Ip, David Coghill, Rosa S Wong, Edith C.H. Ngai, Ian C.K. Wong.
Wearable Signals for Diagnosing Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder in Adolescents: A Feasibility Study.
[link]
[IoTJ'23]
Zhihan Jiang, Vera van Zoest, Weipeng Deng, Edith C.H. Ngai, Jiangchuan Liu.
Leveraging Machine Learning for Disease Diagnoses based on Wearable Devices: A Survey.
[link][pdf]
[VIS'23]
Zhihan Jiang, Handi Chen, Rui Zhou, Jing Deng, Xinchen Zhang, Running Zhao, Cong Xie, Yifang Wang, Edith C.H. Ngai.
HealthPrism: A Visual Analytics System for Exploring Children's Physical and Mental Health Profiles with Multimodal Data.
[arXiv][demo][link][appendix]
[UbiComp'23]
Zhihan Jiang, Lin Lin, Xinchen Zhang, Jianduo Luan, Running Zhao, Longbiao Chen, James Lam, Ka Man Yip, Hung Kwan So, Wilfred HS Wong, Patrick Ip, Edith C.H. Ngai.
A Data-Driven Context-Aware Health Inference System for Children during School Closures.
[link][pdf][presentation][poster]
[CHI'22]
Chuhan Shi, Zhihan Jiang, Xiaojuan Ma, Qiong Luo.
A Personalized Visual Aid for Selections of Appearance Building Products with Long-term Effects.
[link][pdf]

Education

2021โ€”2025Ph.D.The University of Hong Kong, Electrical and Electronic Engineering
Advisor: Edith C.H. Ngai, Faculty of Engineering
2018โ€”2021M.E.Xiamen University, Computer Science & Technology
Advisor: Longbiao Chen, School of Informatics
2014โ€”2018B.E.Xiamen University, Computer Science & Technology
School of Informatics
Minor Xiamen University, Mathematical Finance
 The Wang Yanan Institute for Studies in Economics

Teaching & Tutorials

Conference Tutorials

  • Lead Organizer & Lecturer, From Multimodal Sensing Data to Actionable Health Insights — A Hands-on Guide to Prototyping Your Personal LLM Health Agent, ACM UbiComp/ISWC 2026, Shanghai.

Teaching Assistant

  • COMP3234 / ELEC3443: Computer and Communication Networks, The University of Hong Kong (Fall 2021–2024)
  • Software Architecture and Design Patterns, Xiamen University (Spring 2019)

Services

Session Chair

  • CHI 2026

Journal Reviewer

  • ACM Transactions on Computing for Healthcare (HEALTH)
  • IEEE Transactions on Consumer Electronics (TCE)
  • IEEE Transactions on Affective Computing (TAFFC)
  • IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics (TVCG)
  • IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems (TITS)
  • IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics (TII)
  • IEEE Transactions on Computational Social Systems (TCSS)
  • IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing (TMC)
  • Proc. of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies (IMWUT)
  • Journal of Network and Computer Applications (JNCA)
  • IEEE Internet of Things Journal (IoTJ)

Conference Reviewer

  • IEEE Visualization and Visual Analytics Conference (VIS), 2026
  • The ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST), 2026
  • ACM Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces (IUI), 2026
  • IEEE Pacific Visualization Conference (PacificVis), 2026
  • International Joint Conference on Neural Networks (IJCNN), 2025
  • ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI), 2025
  • ACM International Conference on Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interaction (TEI), 2025
  • IEEE International Conference on Computer Communications (INFOCOM), 2023-2025
  • ACM Conference on Embedded Networked Sensor Systems (SenSys), 2022-2025
  • IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing (ICASSP), 2024-2026
  • IEEE International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems (ICDCS), 2022-2023
  • IEEE/ACM International Workshop on Quality of Service (IWQoS), 2023
  • IEEE International Conference on Ubiquitous Intelligence and Computing (UIC), 2020-2022
  • Chinese Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing (ChineseCSCW), 2020
  • IEEE International Conference on Communications (ICC), 2020