About Me

NOTE: this google site is obsolete and the information has not been up to date. 

I am a research director at Educational Testing Service and leading the Psychometric and Data Science Modeling group within the division of Research and Measurement Science.

Curiosity is the fundamental driving force of all my research. Based on empirical data, I am trying to understand the underlying mechanism of everything, from cosmos to humans. My current research centers on collaborative problem solving, game-based assessment, educational data mining, learning analytics, AI, NLP, and automated scoring. I led several big research projects at ETS, including ETS collaborative science assessment prototype (ECSAP), ETS platform for collaborative assessment and learning (EPCAL), and ETS assessment data analytics solution (glassPy).

I got my PhD in Physics and MA in Statistics both from the University of Michigan. Prior to joining in ETS, I was an astrophysicist endeavoring to understanding how our Universe works at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab). I was working on two prominent astronomical projects that embraced big data since early 2000s, the  Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) and the Dark Energy Survey project (DES). My research ranges from CCD camera development, image quality assurance, to the construction of catalogs of galaxy clusters and cosmological parameter estimation.

In addition to scientific research, I have done a fair amount of work to popularize science, mainly by translating some popular science book and articles, including Albert Einstein's masterpiece "meaning of relativity". These experience turn out to be a very helpful when I started adventures in NLP-based text mining and translation. 

Technical Expertise

• Statistics, AI, Machine Learning, Psychometrics, Scientific Computing

• Natural Language Processing, Automated Scoring

•  Assessment of Collaborative Problem Solving, Games/simulation-based Assessment

• Dynamical System and Differential Equations

• Image Segmentation, Registration, Pattern Recognition, Image Based Precision Measurements

• Charge Coupling Device (CCD) for Imaging

• Physics, Astronomy/Cosmology, Quantum Mechanics, General Relativity

Programming skills

• Python, R, C++, C, Matlab, IDL

• My GitHub: https://github.com/jgbrainstorm

• ECGMM package: https://sites.google.com/site/jiangangecgmm/ 

Publications

• • See here https://goo.gl/pgggDK

Patents

• Deane, P., Feng, G., Zhang, M., Hao, J., Bergner, Y., Flor, M., ... & Lederer, N. (2019). Generating Scores and Feedback for Writing Assessment and Instruction Using Electronic Process Logs, U.S. Patent No. 14/937,164, Washington, DC: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

Media Coverage

• • Wired Science: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/11/google-sky-galaxy-clusters/

  • MIT Technology Review: http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/25965/

  • Fermilab Today: http://www.fnal.gov/pub/today/archive_2011/today11-01-06.html

  • IOP News: http://www.instituteofplay.org/2014/02/press-release-glasslab-publishes-research-on-game-based-assessment/

  • ETS News: https://news.ets.org/stories/got-a-problem-heres-a-21st-century-way-to-solve-it/

Services

• • ETS

    • Co-chair, Research Advisory Council, Division of Psychometrics, Statistics, and Data Sciences, 2019 - 2020

    • Co-lead, Computational Psychometrics Sub-initiative of FASP research initiative, 2016 - 2017

    • Co-lead, Infrastructure Sub-initiative, Games, Simulations and Collaborations Initiative, 2014 - 2016

  • Member of program committee

    • The 35th AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (2021),  Virtual Conference

    • The 57th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL, 2019), Florence, Italy

    • 12nd International Conference on Educational Data mining (2019), Montreal, CA 

    • 11th International Conference on Educational Data mining (2018), Buffalo, NY, USA 

    • 13rd Workshop on Innovative Use of NLP for Building Educational Applications (2018), New Orleans, Louisiana, USA

    • The 16th Annual Conference of the North American Chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics: Human Language Technologies (2018), New Orleans, Louisiana, USA

    • The 13th International Conference on Learning Sciences (2018) , London, UK

    • 10th International Conference on Educational Data mining (2017), Industry Track and Graduate Track, Wuhan, China.

    • 12nd Workshop on Innovative Use of NLP for Building Educational Applications (2017), Copenhagen, Denmark

    • IEEE International conference on systems (2015), man and cybernetics, Hong Kong, China

  • Workshops organizer/chair

    • EPCAL: Studying Synchronous Online Collaboration at Scale, 13th International Conference on Computer Supported Collaborative Learning (2019), Lyon, France. Workshop site: https://www.cscl2019.com/en/pre-conference-workshops--tutorials/full-day-workshops-june-17/epcal-studying-synchronous-online-collaboration-at-scale/8

    • Evidence centered design and computational psychometric solution for process data, annual meeting of National Council on Measurement in Education (2018), New York City, NY.

    • EPCAL: computer-supported collaboration at scale, 12th International Conference on Computer Supported Collaborative Learning (2017), Philadelphia, PA. Workshop site: https://cscl17.wordpress.com/epcal-computer-supported-collaboration-at-scale/

    • Evidence centered design and computational psychometric solution for process data, annual meeting of National Council on Measurement in Education (2017), San Antonio, TX.

  • Session Chair 

    • Annual Meeting of National Council on Measurement in Education (2015), Chicago, IL

  • Panelist

    • Innovative Assessment on Collaboration (2014), Washington DC

Editorial and Reviewer-ship

• • Associate editor, Frontiers in Psychology: Quantitative Psychology and Measurement (https://loop.frontiersin.org/people/516778/overview)

  • Reviewers of  (in Education)

    • Learning and instruction

    • Computers & Education

    • Psychometrika

    • PLOS One

    • International Journal of Testing

    • Journal of Learning Analytics

    • Computers in Human Behavior

    • Educational Assessment

    • IEEE Transactions on Learning Technology

    • Journal of Educational Measurement

    • Quality Assurance in Education

    • ETS Research Report

    • Educational and Psychological Measurement

  • Previous (In Physics)

    • Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series (Impact Factor: 13.456)

    • Astrophysical Journal (Impact Factor: 6.024)

    • Physics Letters B (Impact Factor: 3.955)

    • Astroparticle Physics (Impact Factor: 3.216)

Awards

• • ETS Presidential Awards (2016)

  • ETS SPOT Awards (2013, 2014, 2015)