Chang-Tien Lu

Chang-Tien Lu conducts research in the interdisciplinary field of urban computing that employs techniques from computer science for sustainable development by balancing environmental, economic, and societal needs. He has developed several novel computational and mathematical models for low sample rate water and energy disaggregation to deliver detailed consumption information for water and energy conservation. 

Lu also pioneered a real-time traffic visualization system for evaluating highway traffic flows to support intelligent transportation systems and enable researchers to establish accurate traffic models that allow travelers to select optimal commuting routes. His work has directly contributed to ongoing smart city and smart transportation projects and led to critical theoretical results and algorithms that enhance the efficiency of retrieval and analytical tasks. 

In 2015, Lu , who joined Virginia Tech in 2002, was honored as a Distinguished Member by the Association for Computing Machinery.

Lu has published more than 150 articles in top rated journals and conference proceedings. His data management research on emerging requirements for storing, analyzing, and visualizing spatial data has led to production of innovative prototype systems that help professionals in many fields react quickly and make effective decisions in time-sensitive applications. 

He also edits a number of journals including ACM Transactions on Spatial Algorithms and Systems, where he serves as associate editor; GeoInformatica: An International Journal on Advances of Computer Science for Geographic Information System; Journal of Information Science and Engineering (JISE); and Data and Knowledge Engineering.

Lu has served as general chair for many professional conferences including the IEEE International Conference on Tools with Artificial Intelligence; ACM SIGSPATIAL International Conference on Advances in Geographic Information Systems; and the International Symposium on Spatial and Temporal Databases. He also served as secretary (2008-2011) and vice chair (2011-2014) of the ACM Special Interest Group on Spatial Information (ACM SIGSPATIAL).

Lu received his Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Minnesota at Twin Cities.