Feifei Chen

I am a senior lecturer in Information Technology at Deakin. My research areas are Edge Computing, Distributed Computing Systems, and Software Engineering. In the past 5 years, my research focused on 5G mobile edge computing (MEC). It is a revolutionary technology that impacts a broad range of fields and a variety of industries. I have established several new and well-acknowledged research directions from a new perspective – software vendors’ perspective – in the field of MEC, including 1) edge application placement; 2) edge data distribution; 3) edge data caching; 4) collaborative edge computing; and 5) edge-cloud collaborative machine learning model training. I have a career total of 83 peer-reviewed publications (including 45 CORE A* papers) in top-ranking journals and conferences in my field, with a total citation count of 3,644 as of May 30, 2024, cited by researchers from 77 countries. Nearly all (97%) of my journal papers are published in top 25% journals in the world (SJR Q1), 10 of which are ESI highly cited papers. 71% of my conference papers are published in top venues ranked A or A* by CORE. My h-index is 29/35 (Scopus/Google Scholar). My SciVal’s Field-Weighted Citation Impact index for 2018-2024 is 4.52, indicating that my publications have been cited over 3 times more than what would be expected based on the world average for similar publications in my field. According to DBLP, a well-known computer science bibliography, a search with “edge computing” as the keyword shows that I am the world’s No. 19 researcher in the field of edge computing – below 18 professors.  I have also received over $1.1 million in research grants to date including 2 ARC Linkage Projects and 1 ARC Discovery Project.   I have an outstanding track record of industry and cross-discipline collaboration and impact. My industry-academic collaboration has delivered value-adding outcomes to the industry. My research outcomes of edge data distribution and caching have been integrated into Otaro (www.aibuild.com/otaro), a commercial online VR education platform invented by AUBUILD Pty. Ltd, trialed in 12+ schools and departments in universities in Australia. My collaboration with AIBUILD has resulted in two successful ARC Linkage Projects and a bid for the ARC Training Centre with Monash and Swinburne. Furthermore, my research has contributed to the implementation and evaluation of Telstra’s 5G edge data delivery schemes and services. My emerging reputation as an expert in machine learning has also attracted collaborations with researchers from health, resulting in involvement in one Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF) grant, one NHMRC ideas grant and one Heart Foundation grant.   I have rich experience in research training and supervision. I have supervised 6 research students to completion to date, including 1 PhD student as principal supervisor, 2 PhD students as co-supervisor, 2 PhD students as associate supervisor, and 1 honours student. The student for whom I was the principal supervisor, has made high-impact contributions to the field of edge computing, with 10 first-authored publications in prestigious venues ranked A*/A by CORE. His exceptional achievements were duly recognized when he was awarded the sole Postgraduate Research Award by the School of IT at Deakin in 2021, and Alfred Deakin Medal for doctoral theses in 2022. My ex-PhDs have progressed onto many leading roles, e.g., lecturers at world-ranking universities such as RMIT, and senior R&D roles in organisations such as St. Vincent Health Australia, etc. I am currently the principal supervisor of 2 PhD students and associate supervisor of 3 PhD students. I have been mentoring ECRs (Levels A & B) at Deakin as their research mentor and career mentor, providing guidance and advice on their research and career development.   I have also provided significant services to the edge computing and software engineering communities. I have been invited to serve chairman roles on two international conferences (both ranked A* by CORE). I have also been invited to server as member of program committee of 10+ international conferences, regular reviewer for 10+ journals, book proposal reviewer for Elsevier, and reviewer for ARC National Intelligence and Security Discovery Research Grants (NISDRG).