Me: Jianqiao Mao

PhD Student at University of Birmingham

Previous Data Scientist at Alibaba

IEEE Student Member

jxm1417@student.bham.ac.uk
(+44) 7709956780

Jianqiao Mao is a PhD student at University of Birmingham, supervised by Dr. Max A. Little (2022-present). He is awarded with studentship from the Health Data Research UK-The Alan Turing Institute PhD Programme supported by the Wellcome Trust. Before his PhD study, He works for Alibaba Group as a data scientist, responsible to user growing strategy, data engineering and analytics. Jianqiao contributes to some peer-review journals as the reviewer of, for example, Frontiers In Aging Neuroscience and the Journal of Open Source Software.

He received his MSc degree in Integrated Machine Learning Systems from University College London (2020-2021), BEng degree in Electronics and Electrical Engineering with Honours of the First Class from University of Glasgow, BEng degree in Communication Engineering and BEc degree in Finance from University of Electronic Science and Technology of China. (2016-2020)

Jianqiao has passions in teaching and supporting students in higher education. He is now a part-time teaching fellow (PGTA) at School of Computer Science, University of Birmingham. Before this experience, he mentored students and lectured tutorials across many high-reputation universities and organizations, including University of Cambridge, University of Pennsylvania, University of Glasgow, UCL AI Society, to name but a few. He is also an applicant of Higher Education Association (HEA) associate fellowship, which is expected to be reviewed by June 2023.

Professional Areas

Machine Learning

Computer Vision

Causal Inference

Signal Processing

Publications

[1] Mao, Jianqiao, and Max A. Little. “Front-door Reducibility: Reducing ADMGs to the Standard Front-door Setting via a Graphical Criterion.” arXiv preprint arXiv:2511.15679 (2025).

[2] Mao, Jianqiao, and Max A. Little. “Mechanism learning: Reverse causal inference in the presence of multiple unknown confounding through front-door causal bootstrapping.” arXiv preprint arXiv:2410.20057 (2024).

[3] Mao, Jianqiao, Ryan Grammenos, and Konstantinos Karagiannis. “Data analysis and interpretable machine learning for HVAC predictive control: A case-study based implementation.” Science and Technology for the Built Environment 29.7 (2023): 698-718.

[4] Duan, J., Tian, L., Mao, J., & Li, J. (2022). Optimal social welfare: A many-to-many data transaction mechanism based on double auctions. Digital Communications and Networks.

[5] Mao, J., Tian, L., Zhang, J., Duan, G., & Wang, C. (2020). Many-to-many data trading algorithm based on double auction theory. Procedia Computer Science, 174, 200-209.

Experiences

Post-graduate Teaching Assistant at University of Birmingham
(10/2022-Present)

  • Lab demonstrator: Programming for Data Science & AI;
  • Research Project tutor: Data Science Team Project;
  • Tutorial Lecturer: Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning.

Data Scientist at Alibaba Group
(12/2021-08/2022)

  • Design data infrastructures, optimise data computation and storage methods and develop data products to support the user growing strategy planning.
  • Using machine learning and statistical tools to analyse data, generate professional analysis report to drive business decision making.

Machine Learning Officer at UCL AI Society
(10/2020-08/2021)

  • Advised on tutorials on deep learning, neural nets, and current big-name products (AlphaGo)
  • Suggested novel approaches to the basic teaching of ML
  • Established ML projects to be carried on by members

Short-term Course TA of Microelectronics at University of Pennsylvania, US
(07/2020-08/2020)

  • Taught in TA sessions with extra materials related to the given lectures;
  • Co-supervised students’ individual research project;
  • tutored students with lab and challenging questions;
  • Marked students’ report and essay;
  • Gave lectures to introduce basics of machine learning algorithms to students.

Student Research Assistant at Trusted Cloud Computing and Big Data Key Lab of Sichuan Province, China
(2018-2020)

  • Assisted in data acquisition and pre-processing, machine learning model implementation and optimization in multiple research;
  • Worked on data trading mechanism design with a doctoral student.
  • Gave regular presentations to share and discuss the cutting-edge research and hotspots in machine learning, computer vision and neural network.

Vice President of Glasgow College Student Union at University of Electronics Science and Technology of China(UESTC), China
(05/2018-05/2019)

  • Took charge of public relation maintenance and internal administration, and kept devoting to the student benefits and rights during his tenure.

Leader of Oversea Culture Investigation at Glasgow College, UESTC, China
(05/2018-08/2018)

  • Led the oversea culture investigation the Comparison of the International Citizen Awareness between Chinese and Canadian College Students.
  • The investigation is approved by the Glasgow College as the 1st class project and supported financially.

Founder and the First President of POC Student Club at UESTC, China
(03/2017-05/2018)

  • Planed and implemented member activities;
  • Coordinated public relations and won over fundings;
  • POC is the first finance and economics related student club in UESTC, and it has been awarded the Fastest Developing Club twice since it was founded.

Outstandings

  • HDRUK-Alan Turing PhD studentship supported by Wellcome Trust
  • Outstanding Bachelor’s Final Year Project (2 out of 300)
  • Excellence in Leadership (College Top 1%)
  • 2nd Prize in the Glasgow College Robot Design Competition
  • Excellent Student Scholarship 2017 & 2018 & 2019 (University Top 10%)
  • Excellent Oversea Summer Program Participant Scholarship

Previous Project

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