Dissertation Award for ground-breaking work on Genetic Programming
Dr Ying Bi from the Te Whiri Kawe—Centre for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence received the 2024 IEEE Computational Intelligence Society (CIS) PhD Dissertation Award for her work on Genetic Programming (GP) for Feature Learning in Image Classification.
Dr Bi’s PhD thesis was completed in December 2020 at Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington under the supervision of Professor Mengjie Zhang and Professor Bing Xue. Her work made significant strides in addressing key challenges in image classification—a critical task in machine learning and computer vision, with applications ranging from biology to medicine.
Dr Bi's research introduced innovative GP techniques, enhancing both the performance and interpretability of image classification models. One of her major contributions is a novel feature-learning approach that automatically selects and combines image descriptors to extract rich and discriminative features. This method reduces the need for extensive domain knowledge and increases the adaptability of classification models.
Ying also developed a GP-based approach with a flexible programme structure that learns various types and numbers of image features. This flexibility allows for the customisation of models to specific classification tasks, representing a significant advancement in the field. Her work on evolving ensembles and implementing multi-population GP-based approaches with knowledge transfer has improved the generalisation performance and computational efficiency of these algorithms.
Reflecting on Dr Bi's achievements, Professor Mengjie Zhang says, "Ying's work has pushed the boundaries of what genetic programming can achieve in image classification. Her innovative approaches have not only advanced the field academically but have also paved the way for practical applications in areas that demand high accuracy and flexibility.”
Dr Bi's thesis has led to an impressive body of work, including an authored book and 38 peer-reviewed papers, underscoring the impact and significance of her research. Dr Ying Bi has recently accepted a professorial position at Zhengzhou University.