Web Mining Lab 2026 Gathering in Qingyuan

From July 7 to 10, 2026, nine graduates of the Web Mining Lab reunited with their advisor Jonathan Zhu for a four-day, three-night retreat in Qingyuan, Guangdong. The participants were Winson Peng, Zhijin Zhong, Lun Zhang, Hai Liang, Chengjun Wang, Heng Lu, Zhenzhen Wang, Lu Guan, and Yixin Zhou.

During the gathering, the alumni reflected on their career trajectories since graduation, sharing how their paths have unfolded across different institutions and research domains. They expressed deep gratitude for the lab’s training approach — not only in computational methods but in cultivating a broader way of asking, critically and constructively, communication questions and redefining what counts as digital data. The group also discussed how the rapid advancement of AI is reshaping research directions in computational social science, debating what should remain constant when methods keep changing and how to carry forward the lab’s intellectual legacy without simply chasing next technological waves.