Dr Xiao Qiao, Assistant Professor in the School of Data Science at City University of Hong Kong (CityU), received the 2022 Amazon Research Award in the research area of Applied Machine Learning with his research proposal titled “Predicting Successful Scientific Collaborations”.

Founded in 2015, the Amazon Research Awards offer unrestricted funds to support academic researchers around the world in various disciplines. Dr Qiao was the only recipient from an Asian university among the 26 awardees from 24 universities in seven countries or regions in the 2022 spring cycle.

“I am grateful for and encouraged by recognition from one of the largest and most productive enterprises in the world, Amazon,” Dr Qiao said. “I am excited about the opportunity to work more closely with experts at Amazon, and I look forward to discussing our findings with colleagues.”

Dr Qiao, who joined CityU in 2020, is a financial economist whose research interests include asset pricing, financial economics, financial data analytics and risk management.

The award-winning research proposal seeks to identify and quantify factors that impact scientific success, aiming to build a machine learning network-based prediction model that helps to predict a team’s future success based on the history of the individual and collaborative success of team members involved.

“It is often a great challenge for people with different skills and backgrounds to collaborate. Through this project, we hope to gain a deeper understanding of scientific collaboration. This work may also have broader implications for teamwork in general,” said Dr Qiao.