Wei Cai, Ph.D., SMIEEE

Assistant Professor, Computer Science and Systems
Director, UW Decentralized Computing Laboratory
Tacoma School of Engineering and Technolgy
Milgard Hall (MLG) 221-4, Box 358426
1900 Commerce Street, Tacoma, WA 98402-3100 USA
weicaics@uw.edu  /  faculty.uw.edu/weicaics
UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON


Prospective Students

Our group is recruiting highly motivated students for the Ph.D. program in Computer Science and Systems. Candidates should hold a bachelor degree from reputable institutions and, ideally, have first-author peer-reviewed publications in top conferences or journals. If interested, please email me your CV and research statement.

Motivated undergraduate and master's students at UW are also warmly welcome to join my lab for research activities.

Brief Biography

Dr. Wei Cai is a tenure-track Assistant Professor of Computer Science and Systems at the School of Engineering and Technology, University of Washington, Tacoma, WA, USA. He is now leading the UW Decentralized Computing Laboratory. He holds a Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from The University of British Columbia (2016), an M.Sc. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from Seoul National University (2011), and a B.Eng. in Software Engineering from Xiamen University (2008). Prior to joining UW, Dr. Cai was an Assistant Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen, China. He has also conducted research visits at Academia Sinica (Taiwan), The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, and the National Institute of Informatics (Japan). Dr. Cai has co-authored over 100 peer-reviewed journal and conference papers and has received 6 Best Paper Awards. His research focuses on decentralized computing, with emphasis on mechanism design, social computing, multimedia, and applications. He serves as an Associate Editor for ACM Transactions on Multimedia Computing, Communications, and Applications (TOMM) and IEEE Transactions on Computational Social Systems (TCSS), and previously for IEEE Transactions on Cloud Computing (TCC). Dr. Cai is a Steering Committee member for ACM NOSSDAV, where he served as TPC co-chair in 2023, and has been an Area Chair for ACM MM since 2023. He is a Senior Member of IEEE and a member of ACM.

Selected Publications

(* Corresponding Author, Students Under My Supervision)

Web3 Metaverse:
[MM'24] Lehao Lin, Hong Kang, Xinyao Sun, and Wei Cai*, SemNFT: A Semantically Enhanced Decentralized Middleware for Digital Asset Immortality, 32nd ACM International Conference on Multimedia (MM'24), Melbourne, Australia, October 28-November 1, 2024.
[TOMM] Hongzhou Chen, Haihan Duan, Maha Abdallah, Yufeng Zhu, Yonggang Wen, Abdulmotaleb El Saddik, and Wei Cai*, Web3 Metaverse: State-of-the-Art and Vision, ACM Transactions on Multimedia Computing Communications and Applications, 2023.
[MM'23] Zhonghao Lin, Haihan Duan, Jiaye Li, Xinyao Sun, and Wei Cai*, MetaCast: A Self-Driven Metaverse Announcer Architecture Based on Quality of Experience Evaluation Model, 31st ACM International Conference on Multimedia (MM'23), Ottawa, Canada, October 29-November 3, 2023.
[MM'21] Haihan Duan, Jiaye Li, Sizheng Fan, Zhonghao Lin, Xiao Wu, and Wei Cai*, Metaverse for Social Good: A University Campus Prototype, 29th ACM International Conference on Multimedia (MM'21), Chengdu, China, October 20-24, 2021.
[CommMag] Haihan Duan, Zhonghao Lin, Xiao Wu, and Wei Cai*, MetaCube: A Crypto-Based Unique User-Generated Content Editor for Web3 Metaverse, IEEE Communications Magazine, 2023.
[FDG'22] Yu Jiang, Tian Min, Sizheng Fan, Rongqi Tao, and Wei Cai*, Towards Understanding Player Behavior in Blockchain Games: A Case Study of Aavegotchi, 17th ACM International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games, Athens, Greece, September 5-8, 2022.

Decentralized Fintech:
[CSCW'25] Hongzhou Chen, Chenyu Zhou, Abdulmotaleb El Saddik, and Wei Cai*, Decentralized Web3 Non-Fungible Token Community for Societal Prosperity? A Social Capital Perspectivey, In The 28th ACM SIGCHI Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work & Social Computing (CSCW'25), TBD, 2025.
[WWW'24] Chenyu Zhou, Hongzhou Chen, Hao Wu, Junyu Zhang and Wei Cai*, ARTEMIS: Detecting Airdrop Hunters in NFT Markets with a Graph Learning System, The ACM Web Conference 2024 (WWW'24), Singapore, May 13 - 17, 2024.
[CHI'23] Sizheng Fan, Tian Min, Xiao Wu, and Wei Cai*, Altruistic and Profit-oriented: Making Sense of Roles in Web3 Community from Airdrop Perspective, The 41st ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, Hamburg, Germany, April 23-28, 2023.
[WWWJ] Sizheng Fan, Tian Min, Xiao Wu, and Wei Cai*, Towards Understanding Governance Tokens in Liquidity Mining: A Case Study of Decentralized Exchanges, World Wide Web, Springer, 2022.
[WirelessComm]     Chenyu Zhou, Hongzhou Chen, Shiman Wang, Xinyao Sun, Abdulmotaleb El Saddik, and Wei Cai*, Harnessing Web3 on Carbon Offset Market for Sustainability: Framework and A Case Study, IEEE Wireless Communications, 2023.
[TCSS] Hongzhou Chen, and Wei Cai*, How Information Manipulation on Social Media Influences the NFT Investors' Behavior: A Case Study of Goblintown.wtf, IEEE Transactions on Computational Social Systems, 2023.

Decentralized Infrastructures:
[TMC] Hong Kang, Minghao Li, Lehao Lin, Sizheng Fan, and Wei Cai*, Bridging Incentives and Dependencies: An Iterative Combinatorial Auction Approach to Dependency-Aware Offloading in Mobile Edge Computing, IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing, 2024.
[TNSE] Yuanfang Chi, Haihan Duan, Wei Cai*, Z. Jane Wang, and Victor C.M. Leung*, "Knowledge Inference over Web 3.0 for Intelligent Fault Diagnosis in Industrial Internet of Things", IEEE Transactions on Network Science and Engineering, 2023.
[TOIT] Feijie Wu, Ho Yin Yuen, Henry C.B. Chan, Victor C.M. Leung, and Wei Cai*, Facilitating Serverless Match-based Online Games with Novel Blockchain Technologies, ACM Transactions on Internet Technology, 2022.
[TCC] Sizheng Fan, Juntao Zhao, Rong Zhao, Zehua Wang, and Wei Cai*, CryptoArcade: A Cloud Gaming System with Blockchain-based Token Economy, IEEE Transactions on Cloud Computing, 2022.
[TON] Yunshu Liu, Zhixuan Fang, Man Hon Cheung, Wei Cai, and Jianwei Huang*, An Incentive Mechanism for Sustainable Blockchain Storage, IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking, 2022.
[JSAC] Yunshu Liu, Shulin Ke, Zhixuan Fang, Man Hon Cheung, Wei Cai, and Jianwei Huang*, A Storage Sustainability Mechanism With Heterogeneous Miners in Blockchain, IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications, 2022.

Education

Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering

2011 - 2016
The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada
Supervisor: Prof. Victor C.M. Leung
Thesis: Optimizing Gaming Service Delivery with Cloud


M.Sc. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

2009 - 2011
Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea
Supervisor: Prof. Taekyoung Kwon
Thesis: A Genetic Algorithm Approach to Multi-Agent Itinerary Planning in Wireless Senor Networks

B.Eng. in Software Engineering

2004 - 2008
Xiamen University, Xiamen, China
Supervisor: Prof. Wenhua Zeng
Thesis: Multi-Interface and Multi-Path Ad hoc On-Demand Distance Vector Routing Protocol in Wireless Mesh Networks