Ce ZHU

IEEE/Optica/IET/AAIA Fellow

ChangJiang Distinguished Professor

Dean, Glasgow College

University of Electronic Science and Technology of China (UESTC)

Email: eczhu@uestc.edu.cn

1. Biography

Ce ZHU is a ChangJiang (Cheung Kong) Distinguished Professor at the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China (UESTC), China, and serves as the Dean of Glasgow College, a joint school between the University of Glasgow, UK and UESTC, China. He is also an affiliate professor of James Watt School of Engineering, University of Glasgow, UK (https://www.gla.ac.uk/schools/engineering/staff/index.html/staffcontact/person/33dceded8494). He has been leading the Lab of Advanced Visual Communication & Computing, UESTC, as the Founding Director since 2012. He was with Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore, for 14 years from 1998 to 2012, where he was a Research Fellow, a Program Manager, an Assistant Professor and then promoted to an Associate Professor in 2005. Additionally, he held visiting positions at Queen Mary University of London (UK) in 2008, and Nagoya University (Japan) in 2011. Previously, he pursued postdoctoral research at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, in 1995, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, and the University of Melbourne, Australia, from 1996 to 1998. He received his B.S. degree from Sichuan University, Chengdu, China, in 1989, and his M.Eng and Ph.D. degrees from Southeast University, Nanjing, China, in 1992 and 1994, respectively, all in electronic and information engineering.

His research interests lie in the general areas of visual information processing, multimedia signal processing and systems, specializing in image/video coding and processing, 3D video, (AI-enabled) visual analysis, perception and applications. He has authored or co-authored over 340 publications, which have received 12,100+ citations (H-index: 57) in Google Scholar. As the lead editor, he has edited three books and contributed five book chapters. He co-authored a book entitled “Tensor Computation for Data Analysis” (Springer) released in 2021. He has filed more than 120 patents (95 granted with 4 transferred). He has contributed 83 proposals (37 adopted) to the JVET, JCT-3V, MPEG IVC, and AVS2 video coding standardizations (mainly on encoding optimization, with proposed techniques adopted in the standard reference software). He is one of the principal drafters of a certified industrial standard in China, namely Video mezzanine coding – Part 1: Scalable ultra high-definition video coding (GY/T 398.1—2024).

Prof. Zhu has served on the editorial boards of a dozen journals, including as an Associate Editor of  IEEE Transactions on Image Processing IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems for Video Technology, IEEE Transactions on Broadcasting, IEEE Signal Processing Letters, an Editor of IEEE Communications Surveys and Tutorials, an Area Editor of Signal Processing: Image Communication (Elsevier), an Associate Editor of Multidimensional Systems and Signal Processing (Springer), an Editorial Board Member of Multimedia Tools and Applications (Springer), and an Associate Editor of Frontiers in Signal Processing – Image Processing. He has also served as a Guest Editor of five special issues in international journals, including IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Signal Processing. He has been involved in organizing numerous international conferences, including serving as a General Chair of IEEE BMSB 2021 and a Technical Program Chair of IEEE ICME 2017, at both of which he received Outstanding Leadership Award. He has also delivered three-hour tutorials at international conferences, including at the IEEE ISCAS 2015, IEEE VCIP 2014, PCM 2014, and has also been invited to deliver keynote speeches at a dozen of international conferences.

He is now serving as the Chair of IEEE ICME Steering Committee (2024-2025), and was a member of the Steering Committee (2019-2020). He has served as a Co-Chair of the Interest Group of Multimedia Processing for Communications (MPCIG) of Technical Committee on Multimedia Communications (MMTC), IEEE ComSoc, and a Chair of Special Interest Group on Big Multimedia of Technical Committee on Multimedia Computing, IEEE Computer Society. He was an elected member of the Multimedia Signal Processing Technical Committee (MMSP-TC, 2015-2020), the Chair of Webmaster Subcommittee of MMSP-TC, IEEE SPS, and an elected member of the Multimedia Systems and Applications Technical Committee (MSA-TC, 2004-2012, 2015-2023), IEEE CASS.

He is a Fellow of IEEE (2017, “for contributions to video coding and communications”), a Fellow of Optica (formerly OSA, 2024, “For pioneering and sustained contributions to visual information coding and processing”), a Fellow of the IET (2014), and a Fellow of AAIA (2021). He was a Distinguished Lecturer of IEEE Circuits and Systems Society (2019-2020), IEEE Broadcast Technology Society (2012-2019), and an APSIPA Distinguished Lecturer (2021-2022). He has received 8 (best) paper awards, including three Best Paper Awards (IEEE HPCC 2022, IEEE BMSB 2014, IIH-MSP 2013), a Best Paper Runner Up Award (IEEE ICME 2020), and three Best Student Paper Awards (IEEE BMSB 2018, IEEE ICME 2017, MobiMedia 2011), and a Best Demo Award (IEEE MMSP 2022). He has been ranked among the Most Cited Chinese Researchers by Elsevier each year in the latest seven years since 2017. He has also been ranked as one of the World’s Top 2% Scientists since 2020, released by Stanford University.

2. Honors & Awards

  • 2024, Fellow of Optica (formerly OSA), “For pioneering and sustained contributions to visual information coding and processing”
  • 2022, Innovation Award for Individuals, China Industry-University-Research-Institute Collaboration Association
  • 2021, Fellow, Asia-Pacific Artificial Intelligence Association (AAIA)
  • 2021-2022, Distinguished Lecturer, Asia Pacific Signal Processing and Information Processing Association (APSIPA)
  • 2021, Outstanding Leadership Award, IEEE International Symposium on Broadband Multimedia Systems and Broadcasting (BMSB), Aug. 2021
  • 2021, Fellow, China Institute of Communications (CIC)
  • 2020-2023, World’s Top 2% of the Most Cited Scientists, released by Stanford University
  • 2020, Science and Technology Achievement Award, China Instrument and Control Society
  • 2019 – 2020, Distinguished Lecturer, IEEE Circuits and Systems Society
  • 2018, Science and Technology Achievement Award,  China Society of Image and Graphics
  • 2018, ChangJiang (Cheung Kong) Professorship of 2017, Ministry of Education of China
  • 2017-2022,  Most Cited Chinese Researchers (each year in the latest six years),  Elsevier
  • 2017, Outstanding Leadership Award, IEEE International Conference on Multimedia & Expo (ICME), Hong Kong, July 2017
  • 2017, IEEE Fellow, “for contributions to video coding and communications”
  • 2014, Fellow of the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET)
  • 2012 – 2019, Distinguished Lecturer, IEEE Broadcast Technology Society
  • 2009 – 2014, Guest Professor, Southwest Jiaotong University, China
  • 2010, Special Service Award, IEEE Broadcast Technology Society
  • 2010, Awardee of JSPS Scientist Exchange Programme, Japan Society for the Promotion of Science
  • 2008, Awardee of Tan Chin Tuan Exchange Fellowship in Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, & Queen Mary University of London, UK
  • 2007, Awardee of Research Outstanding and Award Recognition, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
  • 2007, Advisory Professor, Beijing Jiaotong University, China
  • 2006, Adjunct/Visiting Professor, Harbin Institute of Technology, Shenzhen Graduate School

  Paper Awards & Distinctions

  1. Best Paper Award (out of 663 submissions), IEEE International Conference on High Performance Computing & Communications (HPCC 2022), Chengdu, China, Dec. 2022
    • F. Liu, C. Zeng, L. Zhang, Y. Zhou, Q. Mu, Y. Zhang, L. Zhang and C. Zhu, “FedTADBench: Federated Time-Series Anomaly Detection Benchmark,” IEEE International Conference on High Performance Computing & Communications (HPCC), Chengdu, China, Dec. 2022.
  2. Best Demo Award, The 24th IEEE International Workshop on Multimedia Signal Processing (MMSP 2022), Shanghai, China, Sept. 2022
    • X. Lin, Y. Zhou, Y. Liu, C. Zhu, “Long-term Visual Localization Using Illumination Insensitive Descriptors,” IEEE International Workshop on Multimedia Signal Processing (MMSP 2022), Shanghai, China, Sept. 2022.
  3. Best Paper Runner Up Award (out of 834 submissions), IEEE International Conference of Multimedia and Expo (ICME 2020), London, UK, July 2020
    • Z. Zha, B. Wen, X. Yuan, J. Zhou, C. Zhu, “Reconciliation of Group Sparsity and Low-rank models for Image Restoration,” IEEE International Conference on Multimedia and Expo (ICME), London, UK, July 2020.
  4. Best Student Paper Award (out of 161 submissions) , IEEE International Symposium on Broadband Multimedia Systems and Broadcasting (BMSB 2018), Valencia, Spain, June 2018
    • S. Song, Y. Lin, H. Guo, C. Zhu, J. Zheng, Y. Gao, “Improved Template-Matching-based FRUC Method in Inter-Frame Video Coding,” IEEE International Symposium on Broadband Multimedia Systems and Broadcasting (BMSB), Valencia, Spain, June 2018.
  5. Best Student Paper Award (out of 850 submissions), IEEE International Conference on Multimedia & Expo, Hong Kong, July 2017
    • X. Li, M. Ye, Y. Liu, C. Zhu, “Memory-based Pedestrian Detection Through Sequence Learning,” IEEE International Conference on Multimedia and Expo (ICME), Hong Kong, July 2017.
  6. Finalists (top two) for the IEEE Transactions on Broadcasting Best Paper Award (Scott Helt Memorial Award), 2017
    • C. Zhu, S. Li, “Depth Image Based View Synthesis: New Insights and Perspectives on Hole Generation and Filling,” IEEE Transactions on Broadcasting, vol. 62, no. 1, pp. 82-93, Mar. 2016
  7. Best Paper Award (out of 154 submissions), IEEE International Symposium on Broadband Multimedia Systems and Broadcasting (BMSB 2014), Beijing, China
    • C. Zhu, S. Li, “Multiple Reference Views for Hole Reduction in DIBR View Synthesis,” IEEE International Symposium on Broadband Multimedia Systems and Broadcasting (BMSB), Beijing, China, June 2014.
  8. Best Paper Award (out of 270 submissions), 9th International Conference on Intelligent Information Hiding and Multimedia Signal Processing (IIH-MSP 2013), Beijing, China, Oct. 2013
    • C. Zhu, S. Li, “A New Perspective on Hole Generation and Filling in DIBR based View Synthesis,” International Conference on Intelligent Information Hiding and Multimedia Signal Processing (IIH-MSP), Beijing, China, Oct. 2013.
  9. Best Student Paper Award, International ICST Conference on Mobile Multimedia Communications (MobiMedia 2011), Calgari, Italy, September 2011
    • Y. Xu, and C. Zhu, “Multiple Description Coded Video Streaming with Multipath Transport in Wireless Ad Hoc Networks,” International ICST Conference on Mobile Multimedia Communications (MobiMedia), Cagliari, Italy, Sept. 2011.

  Most Cited Papers:

  1. The most cited paper (according to IEEE Xplore) in IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems for Video Technology in 2002
    • C. Zhu, X. Lin, L.P. Chau, “Hexagon-Based Search Pattern for Fast Block Motion Estimation,” IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems for Video Technology, vol. 12, no. 5, pp. 349-355, May. 2002.
  2. The most cited paper (according to IEEE Xplore) in IEEE Journal of Translational Engineering in Health and Medicine in 2019
    • L. Ali, C. Zhu, Z. Zhang, Y. Liu, “Automated Detection of Parkinson’s Disease Based on Multiple Types of Sustained Phonations using Linear Discriminant Analysis and Genetically Optimized Neural Network,” IEEE Journal of Translational Engineering in Health and Medicine, vol. 7, pp. 1-10, Oct. 2019, Art no. 2000410, DOI: 10.1109/JTEHM.2019.2940900.
  3. The 2nd most cited paper (according to Scopus) in Displays in 2017
    • J. Bai, C.C. Chang, T.S. Nguyen, C. Zhu, Y. Liu, “A High Payload Steganographic Algorithm Based on Edge Detection,” Displays, vol. 46, pp. 42-51, Jan. 2017.
  4. The 2nd most cited paper (according to Scopus) in Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence in 2015
    • M. Fu, P. Xu, X. Li, Q. Liu, M. Ye, C. Zhu, “Fast Crowd Density Estimation with Convolutional Neural Networks,” Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence, vol. 43, pp. 81-88, Aug. 2015.

3. Research Grants in the Role of PI (selected in recent years)

  Projects funded by national R&D agencies

  1. Ministry of Science & Technology (MOST), China: Project of National Key R&D Program
    • Title: Multimodal Media Delivery and Presentation on Ubiquitous Terminals in Network Collaborative Environment for Community Service, 12/2023 – 11/2027
  2. National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC): Key Project for international collaboration
    • Title: High Efficiency Coding and High Quality Reconstruction for Dynamic Light Field, 01/2021 – 12/2025
  3. National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC): Key Project with regional joint funding
    • Title: Intelligent Joint Coding of Multi-Source and Wide-Area Surveillance Data on Airport Ground, 01/2020 – 12/2023
  4. National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC): Regular Project
    • Title: Rate-Distortion Optimization in 3D Video Coding & Communications, 01/2016 – 12/2019
  5. Ministry of Education (MOE), China: Project for PhD Programs
    • Title: Multi-View plus Depth Video Coding, 2014 – 2016
  6. National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC): Project for International Collaboration
    • Title: 3D Video Quality Assessment, 01/2013 – 12/2014

  Projects funded by industry (e.g., Huawei, Google, China Mobile, etc.)

  1. Research on Enhanced Compression Beyond VVC Capability, 2023-2024
  2. Research & Development on Intelligent Multi-dimensional Communication System, 2022-2024
  3. Video Conferencing Optimization, 2020-2021: Our proprietary video coding technology has been adapted into the Yixin Video Conferencing System, which has been integrated into the Yixin Teamshub office software.
  4. Perceptual Quality Assessment for Mobile Video Games, 2020-2021
  5. Video Conferencing Optimization, 2020-2021
  6. Temporally Dependent Rate-Distortion Optimization in Video Coding, 2019-2020
  7. Object Detection and Tracking in Thermal-Visible Video, 2018-2020
  8. Investigation on H.266 Video Coding, 2016-2018
  9. Exploring New Generation Video Coding, 2014-2015

4. Professional Activities

  Journal Editorship

  Committee Chairmanship/Membership

  • Chair of Steering Committee, IEEE International Conference on Multimedia & Expo (ICME), 2024-2025
  • Member of Steering Committee, IEEE International Conference on Multimedia & Expo (ICME), 2019-2020
  • Elected Member, Multimedia Signal Processing Technical Committee (MMSP-TC), IEEE Signal Processing Society, 2015-2020 (for two consecutive terms)
  • Chair, Webmaster Subcommittee of MMSP-TC, IEEE Signal Processing Society, 2016-2020
  • Elected Member, Multimedia Systems and Applications Technical Committee(MSA-TC), IEEE Circuits and Systems Society, 2004-2012, 2015-2023 (for two consecutive terms)
  • Chair, Special Interest Group on Big Multimedia (SIGBIGMM) of Technical Committee on Multimedia Computing, IEEE Computer Society, 2015-present
  • Co-Chair, IEEE MMTC Interest Group of Multimedia Processing for Communications, IEEE Communications Society, 2014-present

  Conference Service (selected in recent years)

  • Chair, 2023 UK-China Joint Institute Alliance Annual General Meeting & UK-China Transnational Education Conference, Chengdu, China, Nov. 2023
  • General Chair, IEEE International Symposium on Broadband Multimedia Systems and Broadcasting (BMSB 2021), Chengdu, China, August 2021
  • General Chair, The 5th International Conference on Image, Vision and Computing (ICIVC), Beijing, China, July 2020
  • Technical Program Chair, IEEE International Conference on Multimedia and Expo (ICME 2020), London, UK, July 2020
  • Award Committee Member, IEEE International Conference on Image Processing (ICIP 2019), Taipei, Taiwan, Sept. 2019
  • Technical Program Co-Chair, The 23rd International Conference on Digital Signal Processing (DSP 2018), Shanghai, China, Nov. 2018
  • Technical Program Chair, IEEE Asia Pacific Conference on Postgraduate Research in Microelectronics and Electronics (PrimeAsia 2018), Chengdu, China, Oct. 2018
  • Technical Program Chair, IEEE International Conference on Multimedia and Expo (ICME 2017), Hong Kong, July 2017
  • Program Committee Chair, The 8th International Conference on Image and Graphics (ICIG), Tianjin, China, Aug. 2015
  • Technical Program Chair, The 3rd IEEE China Summit and International Conference on Signal and Information Processing (ChinaSIP), Chengdu, China, July 2015
  • Program Co-Chair, The 21st International Packet Video Workshop (PV 2015), Cairns, Australia, June 2015
  • Award Committee Member, IEEE International Workshop on Multimedia Signal Processing (MMSP 2015), Xiamen, China, Oct. 2015

  Others

  1. Executive Board Member (常务理事), China Society of Image and Graphics (CSIG), 2020-2025. https://www.csig.org.cn/14/202202/51164.html
  2. Grants/Awards Assessor for National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC), Ministry of Science & Technology (MOST), Ministry of Education (MOE), China; Australian Research Council (ARC), Australia; National Science and Technology Board (NSTB), Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), and Ministry of Education (MOE), Singapore
  3. PhD Thesis Examiner & Committee Member/Chair for INSA de Rennes (PhD & HDR), France; University of Liverpool, UK; University of Southern Queensland, Australia; The Australian National University, Australia; Nanyang Technological University, Singapore; Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong, China and a number of universities in mainland of China.
  4. External Assessor for the Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering at Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, 2012 

5. Keynote/Invited Speeches (selected from 30+ speeches)

  1. “Efficient Feature Modulation Transformer for Single Image Super-Resolution,” The 7th International Conference on Machine Learning and Machine Intelligence (MLMI 2024), Osaka, Japan, Aug. 2024. [Keynote]
  2. “Development and Capacity Building for Academic Faculty: A Case Study of Glasgow College, UESTC,” 2023 UK-China Transnational Education Conference, Chengdu, China, Nov. 2023. [Invited]
  3. “Towards Global Rate Distortion Optimization in Video Coding: Challenges & Recent Developments,” The 6th International Conference on UK-China Emerging Technologies (UCET 2021), Chengdu, China, Nov. 2021. [Keynote]
  4. “Substitute Training for Black-Box Adversarial Attacks,” The 7th Euro-China Conference on Intelligent Data Analysis and Applications (ECC 2021), Hangzhou, China, May. 2021. [Keynote]
  5. “Temporal dependency Based Bit Allocation for Rate Control in HEVC,” The 5th International Conference on Multimedia and Image Processing (ICMIP 2020), Nanjing, China, Jan. 2020. [Keynote]
  6. “Deep Learning for In-Loop Filter Design in HEVC – Learning to Optimize Video Coding,” The 11th International Conference on Graphics and Image Processing (ICGIP), Hangzhou, China, Oct. 2019. [Keynote]
  7. “Towards Global Rate Distortion Optimization in Video Coding: Recent Developments”, IEEE CASS Distinguished Lecture, Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore, jointly organized by IEEE CAS Singapore Chapter & NTU, 7 Aug. 2019.
  8. “Deep Learning for In-Loop Filter Design in HEVC”, NTU Workshop on “Machine Learning and Its Applications”, NTU, Singapore, Aug. 2019. [Invited]
  9. “Image Ordinal Estimation based on CNNs,” Forum on Recent Advances in Image and Graphics, Lanzhou, China, organized by China Society of Image and Graphics (CSIG), June 2019. [Invited]
  10. “Towards Global Rate Distortion Optimization in Video Coding: Recent Developments”, IEEE CASS Distinguished Lecture, INSA Rennes, France, organized by IEEE France Section, 28 Feb. 2019.
  11. “Towards Global Rate Distortion Optimization in Video Coding” Forum of ChangJiang Scholars on Information Technology, Tsinghua University, Beijing, Nov. 2018. [Invited]
  12. “Visual Distortion Detection and Reduction in 3D Video: Recent Advances,” International Symposium on Artificial Intelligence and Robotics (ISAIR), Nanjing, China, Nov. 2018. [Keynote]
  13. “Depth Image Based View Synthesis: New Insights and Perspectives on Hole Generation and Filling,” The 3rd International Conference on Multimedia and Image Processing (ICMIP 2018), Guiyang, China, Mar. 2018. [Keynote]
  14. “Towards Global Rate Distortion Optimization in Video Coding: Recent Advances”, Asia-Pacific Signal and Information Processing Association Annual Summit and Conference (APSIPA ASC), Jeju, Korea, Dec. 2016. [Invited]
  15. Panel discussion of “Meeting Journal Editors”, IEEE Signal and Data Science Forum (SIDAS), Wuhan, China, Apr. 2016 [Panelist Talk]
  16. “Towards Global Rate Distortion Optimization in Video Coding,” IEEE BTS Distinguished Lecture, Sungkyunkwan University, Korea, organized by IEEE BTS Seoul Chapter, Sept. 2015.
  17. “Visual Distortion Detection and Reduction in 3D Video,” International Conference on Intelligent Information Hiding and Multimedia Signal Processing (IIH-MSP), Adelaide, Australia, Sept. 2015. [Keynote]
  18. “3D-TV System with Depth-Image-Based Rendering: Towards High Quality 3D Video,” International Conference on Industrial, Engineering & Other Applications of Applied Intelligent Systems (IEA-AIE), Kaohsiung, Taiwan, June 2014. [Keynote]

  3-hour Tutorials

  • “3D Video System with Depth-Image-Based Rendering: from multi-view video to depth-based 3D video”, IEEE International Symposium on Circuits and Systems (ISCAS 2015), Lisbon, Portugal, May 2015.
  • “Depth-Based 3D Video Techniques: Content Generation and Quality Assessment”, IEEE Visual Communications and Image Processing Conference (VCIP 2014), Valletta, Malta, Dec. 2014.
  • “Depth-Based 3D Video Techniques and Systems”, 15th Annual Pacific-Rim Conference on Multimedia (PCM 2014), Sarawak, Malaysia, Dec. 2014

6. Teaching & Supervision

  Courses taught

       Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore: 2001-2012

  • EE4478 Digital Video Processing (undergraduate course, course coordinator)
  • EE6403 Distributed Multimedia Systems (postgraduate course)
  • EE6427 Video Signal Processing (postgraduate course, course coordinator)
  • E6426 Image Processing and Pattern Recognition (postgraduate course)
  • E6326 Digital Television Systems (postgraduate course)
  • Developed and conducted the online Distance Education (Pilot) course “Distributed Multimedia Systems” for postgraduate (master and PhD) students: video lecture recording, chunking/segmentation of the recordedlecture, design & preparation of weekly online learning activity, weekly online synchronous meeting with students.
  • Conducted design courses, tutorials, projects and labs for undergraduate students
  • Developed materials for EID (Engineering Innovation and Design) projects

       University of Electronic Science and Technology of China (UESTC)

  • UESTC3007 Signals & Systems (3rd-year undergraduate course in English) at the Glasgow College, UESTC, including the development of course specification and syllabus, lectures, lab & project design
  • E0200345 Signals & Systems (2nd-year undergraduate course, bilingual course)
  • 0111117001 Academic Writing (postgraduate course)
  • Organize & conduct seminars/talks for undergraduate & postgraduate students

  Supervision of postgraduate students (PhD & Master) and postdoc researchers

  • Supervised 20+ PhD students and postdocs, and 80+ master students, with 9 PhD students and 18 master students ongoing