Research / Data Intelligence

Zhichen Lai 赖志宸

Biography

Photo of Zhichen Lai

profile

Born in Fuzhou, China, I returned home at the end of 2025 after several years of study and research in Denmark. I’m now an Associate Research Professor at Fuzhou University’s College of Computer and Data Science, where I lead the Data Intelligence and Interdisciplinary Information Group. I’m also a member of the Fujian Key Laboratory of Network Computing and Intelligent Information Processing, mentored by Professor Xing Chen. My research is supported by the MOE National Overseas Talent Recruitment Program (教育部国家海外引才专项) and the NSFC Young Scientists Fund, Category C (国家自然科学基金青年科学基金项目(C 类)).

research

I work on time series and spatio-temporal data, developing efficient methods for learning from incomplete, interconnected, and evolving data. I’m also interested in GeoAI and AI for science and health.

education

I earned my B.S. from UESTC in 2018 and my M.S. from Sichuan University in 2021, advised by Professor Jiancheng Lv. I then moved to Denmark for my Ph.D. at Aalborg University, which I completed in early 2025 under the supervision of Professors Christian S. Jensen (Member of Academia Europaea; ACM/IEEE Fellow), Dalin Zhang, and Huan Li. I also worked as a Research Fellow with Professor Hua Lu.

visits

During my Ph.D., I also spent time at NTNU with Professor Xu Cheng, and at UNSW Sydney with Professors Lina Yao and Dong Gong.

6 records

00
IEEE TKDE 2026
CCF-A CAS Q1 JCR Q1

Impute On-Demand: Adaptive Correlated Time Series Imputation for Changing Environments

Zhichen Lai, Huan Li, Dalin Zhang, Dong Gong, Lina Yao, Christian S. Jensen

01
AAAI 2026
Oral (Top 1.2%) CCF-A

MovSemCL: Movement-Semantics Contrastive Learning for Trajectory Similarity

Zhichen Lai, Hua Lu, Huan Li, Jialiang Li, Christian S. Jensen

02
IEEE TKDE 2025
CCF-A CAS Q1 JCR Q1

Lightweight Correlated Time Series Forecasting Enhanced with Model Distillation

Zhichen Lai, Dalin Zhang, Huan Li, Christian S. Jensen, Hua Lu, Yan Zhao

03
SIGKDD 2024
Oral CCF-A

ReCTSi: Resource-efficient Correlated Time Series Imputation via Decoupled Pattern Learning and Completeness-aware Attentions

Zhichen Lai, Dalin Zhang, Huan Li, Dongxiang Zhang, Hua Lu, Christian S. Jensen

04
WWW 2024
Oral (Top 9.4%) CCF-A

E2USD: Efficient-yet-effective Unsupervised State Detection for Multivariate Time Series

Zhichen Lai, Huan Li, Dalin Zhang, Yan Zhao, Weizhu Qian, Christian S. Jensen

05
SIGMOD 2023
Oral CCF-A

LightCTS: A Lightweight Framework for Correlated Time Series Forecasting

Zhichen Lai, Dalin Zhang, Huan Li, Christian S. Jensen, Hua Lu, Yan Zhao

5 records

00
MOE Talent Program

Ministry of Education's National Overseas Talent Recruitment Program

教育部国家海外引才专项 · 主持

2026–2029
01
NSFC Category C

National Natural Science Foundation of China — Young Scientists Fund (Category C)

国家自然科学基金青年科学基金项目(C 类) · 主持

2027–2029
02
Fujian Category C

Fujian Provincial High-Level Talent Program (Category C)

福建省高层次人才(C 类) · 入选

2026
03
FZU Overseas Talent

Qishan Scholar Program (Overseas Talent Introduction), Fuzhou University

福州大学旗山学者计划(海外项目) · 入选

2029–2034
04
ZJU Open Research Grant

Open Research Grant, State Key Laboratory of Blockchain and Data Security, Zhejiang University

浙江大学区块链与数据安全全国重点实验室开放课题 · 主持

7 records

Associate Research Professor
Mentored by Professor Xing Chen
2025–Present
Current
Ph.D. in Computer Science · Research Fellow
Advised by Professors Christian S. Jensen, Dalin Zhang, and Huan Li
Research Fellow with Professor Hua Lu
2021–2025
Junior Visiting Research Fellow
Working with Professors Lina Yao and Dong Gong
2024
Research Assistant
Advised by Professor Xu Cheng
2022
M.S. in Computer Science
Advised by Professor Jiancheng Lv
2018–2021
B.S. in Computer Science
Advised by Professor Jie Shao
2014–2018
High School · Science Track
2011–2014

Prospective Students

2027 Master's Admissions · 4 positions remainingContact me

I welcome prospective master's students and first- or second-year undergraduates interested in research.

Bring curiosity and solid programming skills; expect close guidance and a supportive research environment.

To get in touch, email me your CV and research interests.

Email

zhla ατ cs.aau.dk

lzc ατ fzu.edu.cn

Replace “ατ” with “@” in both addresses.

Office & Lab

Room 101, Building No. 3, College of Computer and Data Science, Fuzhou University, Minhou, Fuzhou, Fujian, China

© 2026 Zhichen Lai. All rights reserved.

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