Cha Meeyoung, sometimes known as Mia, is an associate professor at

KAIST The Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) is a national research university located in Daedeok Innopolis, Daejeon, South Korea. KAIST was established by the Korean government in 1971 as the nation's first public, resear ...

in the School of Computing and a chief investigator in the Pioneer Research Center for Mathematical and Computational Sciences at the

Institute for Basic Science The Institute for Basic Science (IBS; ) is a Korean government-funded research institute that conducts basic science research and relevant pure basic research. IBS was established in November 2011 by the Lee Myung-bak administration as a res ...

. Her research focuses on network and data science with an emphasis on modeling, analyzing complex information propagation processes,

machine learning Machine learning (ML) is a field of inquiry devoted to understanding and building methods that 'learn', that is, methods that leverage data to improve performance on some set of tasks. It is seen as a part of artificial intelligence. Machine ...

-based

computational social science Computational social science is the academic sub-discipline concerned with computational approaches to the social sciences. This means that computers are used to model, simulate, and analyze social phenomena. Fields include computational economics ...

, and deep learning. She has served on the editorial boards of the journals ''

PeerJ ''PeerJ'' is an open access peer-reviewed scientific mega journal covering research in the biological and medical sciences. It is published by a company of the same name that was co-founded by CEO Jason Hoyt (formerly at Mendeley) and publisher ...

'' and ''ACM Transactions on Social Computing''.

Education

The entirety of Meeyoung's higher education has taken place at the

Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology The Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) is a national research university located in Daedeok Innopolis, Daejeon, South Korea. KAIST was established by the Korean government in 1971 as the nation's first public, researc ...

(KAIST) in

Daejeon, South Korea Daejeon () is South Korea's fifth-largest metropolis, with a population of 1.5 million as of 2019. Located in the central-west region of South Korea alongside forested hills and the Geum River, the city is known both for its technology an ...

. Majoring in

computer science Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to practical disciplines (includi ...

, she graduated magna cum laude for her B.S. The adviser for her M.S. was Kim Taewhan, and her Ph.D. was supervised by Sue Moon.

Career

In 2008, Meeyoung worked as a postdoc in

Max Planck Institute for Software Systems The Max Planck Institute for Software Systems (MPI-SWS) is a computer science research institute co-located in Saarbrücken and Kaiserslautern, Germany. The institute is chartered to conduct basic research in all areas related to the design, an ...

under adviser Krishna Gummadi. Leaving Max Planck, she returned to her alma mater and became an assistant professor in the Graduate School of Culture Technology later becoming an associate professor joint faculty member in the School of Computing. Outside of KAIST, she worked as a scientific and technical consultant for both

SK Telecom SK Telecom Co., Ltd. ( or ) is a South Korean wireless telecommunications operator and former film distributor and is part of the SK Group, one of the country's largest chaebols. It leads the local market with 50.5 percent share as of 2008. ...

and the Korea Internet Self-Governance Organization in 2010 and 2014, respectively. In 2015, Meeyoung went to Menlo Park to work as a visiting professor with Facebook's Data Science Team hosted by Lada Adamic. In 2019, she and

Oum Sang-il Oum Sang-il (; born 1976) is a Korean mathematician working in graph theory and discrete mathematics. He is a tenured professor in the Department of Mathematical Sciences at KAIST and the chief investigator of the Discrete Mathematics Group in ...

were the founding chief investigators of the Pioneer Research Center for Mathematical and Computational Sciences at the

(IBS). This and the Pioneer Research Center for Biomolecular and Cellular Structure are the first of two such centers at IBS. Headed by Meeyoung, the Data Science Group researches

fake news Fake news is false or misleading information presented as news. Fake news often has the aim of damaging the reputation of a person or entity, or making money through advertising revenue.Schlesinger, Robert (April 14, 2017)"Fake news in reality ...

, perception biases in relation to AI, deep learning of heterogeneous data for modeling human behavior, and prediction efforts through language processing and image analysis. Seeing the

infodemic An infodemic is a rapid and far-reaching spread of both accurate and inaccurate information about something, such as a disease. The word is a portmanteau of "information" and "epidemic." As facts, rumors, and fears mix and disperse, it become ...

on COVID-19 information starting in China and spreading to Korea and the US, the Data Science Group and researchers from

Ewha Womans University Ewha Womans University () is a private women's university in Seoul founded in 1886 by Mary F. Scranton under Emperor Gojong. It was the first university founded in South Korea. Currently, Ewha is one of the world's largest female educational inst ...

, started the multilingual Facts Before Rumors campaign to separate common claims seen online.

Awards and honors

*2022: Commendation, 55th Science Day,

Ministry of Science and ICT The Ministry of Science and ICT (MSIT; ; Hanja: 科學技術情報通信部) is a ministry of the government of South Korea. It succeeded the former Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning. The headquarters was originally in Gwacheon, Gyeong ...

*2020: Test of Time Award, International Conference on Web and Social Media *2019: Young Information Scientist Award *2016: Lifetime member, Korean Institute of Information Scientists and Engineers (ko) *2012: Best Paper, International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media *2009: Best Data Workshop Paper, 3rd Int'l AAAI Conference on Weblogs and Social Media *2007: Best Paper, ACM Internet Measurement Conference

Editorial boards

*2016–present ''

'' *2016–present ''ACM Transactions on Social Computing''

Selected publications

# # # #

References

External links

PRC for Mathematical and Computational Sciences - Data Science Group
*
KAIST Data Science Lab
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cha, Meeyoung Academic staff of KAIST 1979 births Living people KAIST alumni Institute for Basic Science 21st-century South Korean mathematicians South Korean women computer scientists South Korean computer scientists 21st-century South Korean women scientists 21st-century South Korean scientists 21st-century women mathematicians South Korean women mathematicians South Korean scientists