About Me

I am an Assistant Professor in the School of Computer Science and Engineering at Chung-Ang University (CAU), where I am leading the Data Mining and Intelligence Systems (DMAIS) Lab. Prior to joining CAU, I worked as a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Department of Computer Science at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) with Prof. Hanghang Tong. I received my Ph.D. degree in Computer Science from Hanyang University under the supervision of Prof. Sang-Wook Kim.

Research Interest

  • Network Science: Graph and Hypergraph Neural Networks, Dynamic Network Learning, Self-Supervised Learning on Networks
  • Information Retrieval & Recommender Systems: Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), Personalized Recommendation
  • Applied Data Science: Time-Series Forecasting and Anomaly Detection, Knowledge Graph Embedding and Its Applications
  • Trustworthy AI: Fairness, Diversity, and Explainability in Graph Learning, Machine Unlearning on Graphs
Publications (* indicates equal contributions)

  • CROWN: A Novel Approach to Comprehending Users' Preferences for Accurate Personalized News Recommendation
    Yunyong Ko, Seongeun Ryu, and Sang-Wook Kim
    WWW 2025 | ACM Web Conference
    Selected as an Oral Presentation of WWW 2025
    Paper / Code
  • HyGEN: Regularizing Negative Hyperedge Generation for Accurate Hyperedge Prediction
    Song Kyung Yu, Da Eun Lee, Yunyong Ko, and Sang-Wook Kim
    WWW 2025 (Short Paper) | ACM Web Conference
    Paper / Code
  • Enhancing Hyperedge Prediction with Context-Aware Self-Supervised Learning
    Yunyong Ko, Hanghang Tong, and Sang-Wook Kim
    TKDE | IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering (SCIE, 2025)
    Paper / Code
  • HearHere: Mitigating Echo Chambers in News Consumption through an AI-based Web System
    Youngseung Jeon, Jaehoon Kim, Sohyun Park, Yunyong Ko, Seongeun Ryu, Sang-Wook Kim, and Kyungsik Han
    CSCW 2024 | ACM Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing
    Paper
  • SAGE: A Storage-Based Approach for Scalable and Efficient Sparse Generalized Matrix-Matrix Multiplication
    {Myung-Hwan Jang*, Yunyong Ko*}, Hyuck-Moo Gwon, Ikhyeon Jo, Yongjun Park, and Sang-Wook Kim
    CIKM 2023 | ACM International Conference on Information and Knowledge Management
    Paper
  • KHAN: Knowledge-Aware Hierarchical Attention Networks for Accurate Political Stance Prediction
    Yunyong Ko, Seongeun Ryu, Soeun Han, Youngseung Jeon, Jaehoon Kim, Sohyun Park, Kyungsik Han, Hanghang Tong, and Sang-Wook Kim
    WWW 2023 | ACM Web Conference
    Paper / Code
  • RealGraphGPU: A High-Performance GPU-Based Graph Engine toward Large-Scale Real-World Network Analysis
    Myung-Hwan Jang, Yunyong Ko, Dongkyu Jeong, Jeong-Min Park, and Sang-Wook Kim
    CIKM 2022 (Short Paper) | ACM International Conference on Information and Knowledge Management
    Paper
  • Not All Layers Are Equal: A Layer-Wise Adaptive Approach Toward Large-Scale DNN Training
    Yunyong Ko, Dongwon Lee, and Sang-Wook Kim
    WWW 2022 | ACM Web Conference
    Paper / Code
  • D-FEND: A Diffusion-Based Fake News Detection Framework for News Articles Related to COVID-19
    Soeun Han, Yunyong Ko, Yusim Kim, Heejin Park, Seongsu Oh, and Sang-Wook Kim
    SAC 2022 | ACM Symposium on Applied Computing
    Paper
  • MASCOT: A Quantization Framework for Efficient Matrix Factorization in Recommender Systems
    {Yunyong Ko*, Jae-Su Yu*}, Hong-Kyun Bae, Yongjun Park, Dongwon Lee, and Sang-Wook Kim
    ICDM 2021 | IEEE International Conference on Data Mining
    Selected as One of the Best-ranked Papers of ICDM 2021 for fast-track journal invitation
    Paper / Code
  • ALADDIN: Asymmetric Centralized Training for Distributed Deep Learning
    Yunyong Ko, Kibong Choi, Hyunseung Jei, Dongwon Lee, and Sang-Wook Kim
    CIKM 2021| ACM International Conference on Information and Knowledge Management
    Selected as a Spotlight Presentation of CIKM 2021
    Paper / Appendix
  • An In-Depth Analysis on Distributed Training of Deep Neural Networks
    Yunyong Ko, Kibong Choi, Jiwon Seo, and Sang-Wook Kim
    IPDPS 2021 | IEEE International Parallel and Distributed Processing Symposium
    Paper
  • Influence Maximization for Effective Advertisement in Social Networks: Problem, Solution, and Evaluation
    Suk-Jin Hong, Yunyong Ko, Moon-Jeung Joe, and Sang-Wook Kim
    SAC 2019 | ACM Symposium on Applied Computing
    Paper
  • Efficient and Effective Influence Maximization in Social Networks: A Hybrid-Approach
    Yunyong Ko, Kyung-Jae Cho, and Sang-Wook Kim
    Information Sciences (SCIE, 2018)
    Paper
  • Influence Maximization in Social Networks: A Target-Oriented Estimation
    Yunyong Ko, Dong-Kyu Chae, and Sang-Wook Kim
    Journal of Information Science (SCIE, 2018)
    Paper
  • Accurate Path-Based Influence Maximization in Social Networks
    Yunyong Ko, Dong-Kyu Chae, and Sang-Wook Kim
    WWW 2016 (Short Paper) | ACM Web Conference
    Paper
Experiences

  • University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), Urbana, IL, USA May 2022 - Feb. 2024
    Postdoctoral Researcher, Department of Computer Science (Advisor: Prof. Hanghang Tong)
    Topic: Large-Scale Hypergraph Learning for Real-World Applications
  • Hanyang University, Seoul, Korea Sep. 2021 - Apr. 2022
    Postdoctoral Researcher, Department of Computer Science (Advisor: Prof. Sang-Wook Kim)
    Topic: Optimization Technique for Large-Batch DNN Training
  • The Pennsylvania State University (PSU), University Park, PA, USA Oct. 2019 - Feb. 2020
    Visiting Scholar, College of Information Sciences and Technology (IST) (Advisor: Prof. Dongwon Lee)
    Topic: Data Parallelism Approach for Distributed Deep Learning
Education

  • Hanyang University, Seoul, Korea Aug. 2021
    Ph.D in Computer Science (Advisor: Prof. Sang-Wook Kim)
    Thesis: Effective Approaches to Distributed Deep Learning: Methods, Analyses, and Evaluation
  • Hanyang University, Seoul, Korea Aug. 2013
    B.S in Computer Science
Honors & Awards

  • Scholarship and Teaching for Engineering Postdocs (STEP)
    Grainger College of Engineering (GCOE), University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 2023
  • Best Ranked Papers of IEEE ICDM
    IEEE International Conference on Data Mining 2021
  • Spotlight Presentations of ACM CIKM
    ACM International Conference on Information and Knowledge Management 2021
  • Outstanding Ph.D. Dissertation Award
    Research Institute of Industrial Science, Hanyang University 2021
  • ACM SIGAPP Student Travel Award
    ACM Symposium on Applied Computing 2019
  • Naver Ph.D. Fellowship
    Naver Corporation 2017
Teaching

  • Graduate School
    CAU Data Mining (48768) 2025 Spring
  • Undergraduate School
    CAU Capstone Design (56120) 2025 Spring
    CAU Artificial Intelligence (17182) Fall 2024
    CAU Algorithm (13601) Spring 2024-2025
    CAU Database Design (34692) Fall 2024
    CAU Data Structure (40989) Spring 2024
Professional Services

  • Track Co-Chair
    ACM Symposium on Applied Computing (SAC) 2023 - 2025
  • Program Committee Member (or Conference Reviewer)
    ACM International Conference on Information and Knowledge Management (CIKM) 2025
    ACM Web Conference (WWW) 2023 - 2025
    ACM SIGKDD Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining (KDD) 2021, 2022, 2024, 2025
    IEEE International Conference on Data Mining (ICDM) 2022, 2023
    AAAI International Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) 2021
    ACM Symposium on Applied Computing (SAC) 2022, 2023
  • Journal Reviewer
    ACM Transactions on Knowledge Discovery from Data (TKDD) 2025
    ACM Computing Surverys (CSUR) 2024
    IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks and Learning Systems (TNNLS) 2023, 2025
    IEEE Transactions on Network Science and Engineering (TNSE) 2024
    Journal of Supercomputing 2023