Overview

I am a Lecturer in the School of Computing and Mathematical Sciences at the University of Leicester. My research focuses on developing efficient and scalable solutions for large-scale data processing and machine learning, with particular interests in graph data processing, graph mining, and vector databases.

I have published more than 30 CORE A*/CCF-A level papers, including work at SIGMOD, VLDB, SIGKDD, ICDE, The Web Conference, TKDE, and VLDBJ. I have also authored one monograph and obtained one patent. More information is available on my Biography page.

Recent Work and Activities

• Graph data processing: graph processing, path queries, dynamic graphs, social network analysis, and parallel and distributed computing.
• Vector data management: approximate nearest-neighbor search, filtered vector search, and vector indexing.
• Graph mining and machine learning: graph mining, graph condensation, recommender systems, large language models, and AI for combinatorial optimization.
• Recent publications: ICDE 2027; TKDE, SIGKDD, SIGMOD, and VLDB 2026; ICDE, SIGKDD, SIGMOD, The Web Conference, and VLDB 2025. See Selected Publications.

Academic Activities

• Program Committee Chair of the 4th International Workshop on Large-Scale Graph Data Analytics (LSGDA) @ VLDB, 2025.
• Session Chair of the IEEE International Conference on Data Engineering (ICDE), 2023–2025.
• Program committee member and reviewer for leading conferences and journals. See Academic Services.
• Lecturer and convenor for undergraduate and postgraduate courses at the University of Leicester. See Teaching.

Awards

• 2021 Global Top 100 Chinese Rising Stars in Artificial Intelligence, 2021.
• SIGMOD Travel Award, 2019.
• Outstanding Graduate of Chongqing City, 2016.
• Outstanding Graduate of Chongqing University, 2016.

Prospective Students

I am looking for highly motivated PhD students, including CSC Joint PhD candidates, to join me at the University of Leicester. Our work focuses on graph data processing, graph mining, and vector databases.

• UK and international applicants may be eligible for GTA-funded scholarships.
• Chinese applicants may be eligible for CSC-funded scholarships.
• Please send your CV and research statement to wl226@leicester.ac.uk or livent@126.com.

Please visit the Prospective Students page for application details and funding links.