Zhang Wei Jia

Jia Zhang is Inaugural Robert H. Dedman Jr. Endowed Department Chair and Professor of the Department of Computer Science at SMU Lyle, with a courtesy appointment in the Department of Operations Research and Engineering Management. Her research interests emphasize the application of machine learning and information retrieval methods to tackle data science infrastructure problems, with a recent focus on scientific workflows, provenance mining, software discovery, knowledge graph, and interdisciplinary applications of all of these interests in the areas of earth science and healthcare. She has served as PI on federal grants worth over $5 Million.

Dr. Zhang has co-authored one textbook "Services Computing" and has published over 250 refereed journal papers, book chapters, and conference papers. Her research won two Best Paper awards at IEEE SCC (2011, 2017), three Best Student Paper awards at IEEE ICWS (2014, 2018) and IEEE ICCC (2018), and one Distinguished Paper award at ICSOC (2023). She also holds four US patents. Dr. Zhang has served as an associate editor of the IEEE TSC since 2008.

Prior to joining SMU, she was a faculty member at Carnegie Mellon University, Northern Illinois University, and Nanjing University, and worked in industry as a software architect.