computer science

Pascale Fung

Pascale Fung is a computer science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Pascale Fung rather than just read about it. In short: Pascale Fung (馮雁) (born in Shanghai, China) is a co-founder and Chief Research and Innovation Officer of AMI Labs, an artificial intelligence research company focused on world models. She is a professor in the Department of Electronic & Computer Engineering and the Department of Computer Science & Engineering at the Hong Kong University of Science & Technology(HKUST).

Key takeaways

Pascale Fung belongs to computer science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Pascale Fung to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Pascale Fung from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Pascale Fung (馮雁) (born in Shanghai, China) is a co-founder and Chief Research and Innovation Officer of AMI Labs, an artificial intelligence research company focused on world models. She is a professor in the Department of Electronic & Computer Engineering and the Department of Computer Science & Engineering at the Hong Kong University of Science & Technology(HKUST). She is the director of the Centre for AI Research (CAiRE) at HKUST. She is an elected Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) for her “contributions to human-machine interactions”, an elected Fellow of the International Speech Communication Association for “fundamental contributions to the interdisciplinary area of spoken language human-machine interactions” and an elected Fellow of the Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL) for her “significant contributions toward statistical NLP, comparable corpora, and building intelligent systems that can understand and empathize with humans”. She is a member of the Global Future Council on Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, a think tank of the World Economic Forum, and blogs for the Forum's online publication Agenda. She is a member of the Partnership on AI. She has been invited as an AI expert to different government initiatives in China, Japan, the UAE, India, the European Union and the United Nations. Fung's publication topics include spoken language systems, natural language processing, and empathetic human-robot interaction. She co-founded the Human Language Technology Center (HLTC) and is an affiliated faculty with the Robotics Institute and the Big Data Institute, both at HKUST. Additionally, she is the founding chair of the Women Faculty Association at HKUST. She is actively involved in encouraging young women into careers in engineering and science.

Career and research interests

Fung's work is focused on building systems that try to understand and empathize with humans. She has authored and co-authored hundreds of publications, along with many journal listings and book chapters. Fung is often found in the media, among others as a writer for Scientific American, the World Economic Forum, and the London School of Economics, and the Design Society. She was a pioneer in using statistical models for natural language understanding. Her PhD thesis proposed unsupervised methods for aligning texts and mining dictionary translations in different languages by distributional properties. She is an expert in spoken language understanding and computer emotional intelligence, and is a strong proponent of technology transfer. Fung has applied many of her research group's results in the fields of, among others, robotics, IoT, and financial analytics. Her efforts led to the launch of the world's first Chinese natural language search engine in 2001, the first Chinese virtual assistant for smartphones in 2010, and the first emotional intelligent speaker in 2017.

Honors Elected Fellow, Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI), for “significant contributions to the field of Conversational AI and to the development of ethical AI principles and algorithms” Elected Fellow, Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL), for “significant contributions toward statistical NLP, comparable corpora, and building intelligent systems that can understand and empathize with humans” Nominee, the VentureBeat AI Innovation Awards at Transform 2020, for "AI for Good" Awardee, 2017 Outstanding Women Professionals & Entrepreneurs Award, Hong Kong Women Professionals & Entrepreneurs Association Elected Fellow, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), for “contributions to human-machine interactions” Elected Fellow, International Speech Communication Association (ISCA), for “fundamental contributions to the interdisciplinary area of spoken language human-machine interactions" Member, Global Future Council on AI and Robotics, World Economic Forum (2016–) One of the Top 50 Women of Hope, selected by List Magazine in 2014 Selected as “My Favorite Teacher” by top engineering students in 2007 and in 2009

Affiliations

Fung is affiliated with the following institutions and organizations:

Hong Kong University of Science and Technology World Economic Forum Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Association for Computational Linguistics International Speech Communication Association Association for Computing Machinery Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence

See also Kathleen McKeown Roberto Pieraccini Julia Hirschberg Tony F. Chan Shrikanth Narayanan

References

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Pascale Fung

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Pascale Fung claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In computer science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Pascale Fung before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Pascale Fung ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Pascale Fung

In research: Pascale Fung appears in computer science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Pascale Fung in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Pascale Fung is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Academic staff of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Chinese computer scientists, Chinese women computer scientists, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Pascale Fung outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Pascale Fung in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Pascale Fung means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Pascale Fung out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Pascale Fung in simple terms?

Why does Pascale Fung matter?

Because it connects several computer science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Pascale Fung?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Pascale Fung.