I am an Associate Professor at the School of Computer Science, University of Waterloo. I direct the WVisdom (previously WatVis) research lab. I am also affiliated with the WaterlooHCI lab. I am a member of the Waterloo Artificial Intelligence Institute (Waterloo.ai), the Waterloo Institute for Sustainable Aeronautics (WISA), and the Games Institute. I received my Ph.D from the Department of Computer Science, University of Toronto, where I was affiliated with the Dynamic Graphic Project (DGP) lab.

My research focuses on the areas of Information Visualization (InfoVis), Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), Data Science, and Human-Centered AI. I develop novel interactive systems and visual representations that promote the interplay between humans, machines, and data. My research aims to boost the efficiency of human-data interaction with exploratory and explanatory interfaces that tightly integrate the flexibility and creativity of users with the scalability of algorithms and machine learning. For more information, please see my bio sketch.

In general, I am NOT recruiting new students now; however, I am always welcoming highly-motivated and exceptional PostDoc, Ph.D., M.Math., and undergraduate students. Please read the Prospective page before contacting me; otherwise, you will unlikely get a response.

Recent and Best

NBDESCRIB (ACL Findings'25)
A dataset for text description generation from tables and code.
VATRA (GI'25)
Explaining adversarial machine learning with interactive visualization.
Code Shaping (CHI'25)
Editing code using free-form sketch.
Brickify (CHI'25)
Designing graphics via directly manipulatable tokens.
Influencer (CHI'25)
Fusing images and text for promotional posts.
WavData Lamp (CHI'25)
Studying user relations with data-physicalized thing.
AdvEx (TIIS'25)
Explaining adversarial machine learning with interactive visualization.
Piet (CHI'24)
Fluid color manipulation for motion graphics videos.
Streaming in VR (ISS'23)
Investigating practices, challenges, and opportunities of VR streaming on Twitch.
Hand-over-face gestures (MobileHCI'19)
Interacting with your smartphone through the built-in camera.
KTGraph (VAST'17)
Studying handoff of partial findings in asynchronous collaborative sensemaking.
EgoLines (CHI'16)
Visual exploration of dynamic egocentric networks.
MatrixWave (CHI'15)
Visual comparison of event sequence data, such as user clickstreams on websites.
FluxFlow (VAST'14)
Visual analysis of anomalous information spreading in social media.

Sponsors

Thank the following sponsors for kindly offering cash and in-kind contributions to our research!