Who am I?
Childhood
Academic Journey
Current Position
Academic Profile
Dr. Hao Xu spent his childhood and adolescence in Dongying city, where he received his education until the age of 18. In 2011, he left his hometown and ventured to Beijing in pursuit of higher education, driven by his academic aspirations. At China Agricultural University (CAU), Dr. Xu spent four years studying and successfully earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemistry, in addition to a Bachelor of Economics degree in Finance upon completing his undergraduate studies.
In 2015, Dr. Xu made the decision to pursue a master program in Computational Chemistry. He chose Southern Methodist University (SMU) as his institution of choice to advance his education. His experience at SMU fostered a strong interest in programming and data science.
In 2017, Dr. Xu continued his education at Boston College, where he pursued a Ph.D. in Chemistry. His studies focused on extensive organic synthesis and quantum chemistry calculation. He successfully defended his Ph.D. in December of 2022.
However, with the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Xu faced new opportunities and challenges. As the world shifted towards a national shutdown and hybrid work arrangements, he found himself drawn towards exploring the fundamentals of software engineering and data science. Dr. Xu seized this opportunity and enrolled in the Master of Science in Computer Science program at the Georgia Institute of Technology (GT) in August 2020. Two years later, in August 2022, he successfully completed the program while simultaneously attending the Ph.D. program at Boston College.
Currently, Dr. Xu has joined the Department of Computer Science at Brandeis University as a postdoctoral researcher in machine learning. In this role, his focus will be on developing innovative machine learning and deep learning solutions to address complex chemical challenges, utilizing advanced techniques such as graph neural networks (GNN), graph convolutional networks (GCN), and others.
Personal Profile
Interests and hobbies: playing basketball, fishing and cooking.
Favorite books: I Ching, Tao Te Ching.
Soft Skills: leadership, mentorship, critical thinking, problem solving and time management;