Ju Sun Receives Guillermo E. Borja Career Development Award

Department of Computer Science and Engineering Assistant Professor Ju Sun won the Guillermo E. Borja Career Development Award for his exceptional research and scholarly accomplishments during the probationary period of tenure review. The award comes with a $3,500 reward for scholarly and research activities.

“The award is a great recognition of my hard work over the past six years,” Sun said. “It is a great recognition of my teaching and my research.”

Sun joined the University of Minnesota in 2019. He is the founder of the Group of Learning, Optimization, Vision, healthcarE, and X (GLOVEX), which focuses on strengthening the theoretical and computational foundations of machine and deep learning and applying these methods to tackle the most pressing scientific, engineering, and medical challenges. Sun credits this interdisciplinary research for helping him earn the award. 

“The University of Minnesota has a great appreciation and an intense culture of interdisciplinary research,” Sun said. It encourages people to come together, especially from different disciplines.

Sun said the $3,500 will go toward supporting student research and funding GPU computing—both critical to their AI research.

Learn more about Sun’s research on the GLOVEX website. 

When Sun joined the faculty on the Twin Cities campus, the department did not offer an accessible introductory course to deep learning for senior undergraduates or early-stage PhD students. In spring 2020, he launched the first iteration of his deep learning class, which immediately drew strong interest. 

“It attracted a lot of students, because many students want to get a deep learning background,” he said. 

After several successful offerings, the course became a formal 5000-level class and is now required in many AI and data science programs. While the class capacity is typically set at 90, Sun says, it often has to be increased to 120 to accommodate widespread interest. 

“We do not just train computer science students,” Sun said. “The majority of students come outside of computer science. I have a lot of students from the medical school, business school, agriculture, and basically everywhere.”

Sun's research group, GLOVEX, includes a variety of graduate and undergraduate researchers, and Sun takes an active role in mentoring them.

“We meet regularly—usually at least once or twice a week, and we also hold a marathon-long group seminar every Friday afternoon,” he said.

He emphasizes the importance of frequent interaction, both for understanding how students approach problems and helping them understand his own methods.

“It’s important to have many opportunities to learn from each other,” he said. “We learn and make progress together.”

For Sun, the award affirms the progress made so far and highlights his ongoing efforts in research, teaching, and mentorship. 

“It’s a big encouragement for me to continue doing good work,” he said.

Learn more about Sun’s research on the GLOVEX website.