About Me

Hi, I am Weikai (Vica) Yang (杨维铠), an Assistant Professor at the Data Science and Analytics Thrust (DSA), and jointly appointed at the Computational Media and Arts Thrust (CMA) in Information Hub, the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (Guangzhou). I received my Ph.D. degree in Software Engineering from Tsinghua University in 2024, under the supervision of Prof. Shixia Liu.

My research primarily focuses on the intersections between visual analysis and machine learning. The goal is to help general users understand large-scale data and utilize machine learning models more effectively and efficiently by incorporating their knowledge and feedback. Specifically, my research directions include VIS4AI, AI4VIS, human-AI collaboration, intelligent data analysis, and active learning.

I am actively seeking self-motivated Ph.D. students and RAs (Click Here!). If you are interested in working with me, please send an email with your CV and transcripts for all degrees. You may consider taking a look at our spotlight paper Foundation Models Meet Visualizations: Challenges and Opportunities, which covers many future research directions I would like to explore.

Publications

Visualization for Artificial Intelligence

Shixia Liu; Weikai Yang; Junpeng Wang; Jun Yuan.

SpringerSynthesis Lectures on Visualization

Springer bib

RuleExplorer: A Scalable Matrix Visualization for Understanding Tree Ensemble Classifiers

Zhen Li; Weikai Yang*; Jun Yuan; Jing Wu; Changjian Chen; Yao Ming; Fan Yang; Hui Zhang; Shixia Liu.

TVCGIEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics. 2025

ieee arxiv pdf supp video bib

Dynamic Color Assignment for Hierarchical Data

Jiashu Chen*; Weikai Yang*; Zelin Jia; Lanxi Xiao; Shixia Liu.

TVCGIEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics. 2025 (Honorable Mention)

ieee arxiv pdf supp video bib code

Enhancing Single Frame Supervision for Better Temporal Action Localization

Changjian Chen; Jiashu Chen; Weikai Yang; Haoze Wang; Johannes Knittel; Xibin Zhao; Steffen Koch; Thomas Ertl; Shixia Liu.

TVCGIEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics. 2024

ieee arxiv pdf supp video bib code

Interactive Reweighting for Mitigating Label Quality Issues

Weikai Yang; Yukai Guo; Jing Wu; Zheng Wang; Lan-Zhe Guo; Yu-Feng Li; Shixia Liu.

TVCGIEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics. 2024

ieee arxiv pdf supp video bib code

Foundation Models Meet Visualizations: Challenges and Opportunities

Weikai Yang; Mengchen Liu; Zheng Wang; Shixia Liu.

CVMComputational Visual Media. 2024 (spotlight paper)

springer arxiv pdf bib

Cluster Aware Grid Layout

Yuxing Zhou*; Weikai Yang*; Jiashu Chen; Changjian Chen; Zhiyang Shen; Xiaonan Luo; Lingyun Yu; Shixia Liu.

TVCGIEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics. 2024.

ieee arxiv pdf supp video preview presentation bib code

A Unified Interactive Model Evaluation for Classification, Object Detection, and Instance Segmentation in Computer Vision

Changjian Chen; Yukai Guo; Fengyuan Tian; Shilong Liu; Weikai Yang; Zhaowei Wang; Jing Wu; Hang Su; Hanspeter Pfister; Shixia Liu.

TVCGIEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics. 2024.

ieee arxiv pdf supp video bib code

A Survey of Visual Analytics Research for Improving Training Data Quality (in Chinese)

Weikai Yang; Changjian Chen; Jiangning Zhu; Lei Li; Peng Liu; Shixia Liu.

JCADCCF Journal of Computer-Aided Design & Computer Graphics. 2023.

jcad pdf bib

Diagnosing Ensemble Few-Shot Classifiers

Weikai Yang; Xi Ye; Xingxing Zhang; Lanxi Xiao; Jiazhi Xia; Zhongyuan Wang; Jun Zhu; Hanspeter Pfister; Shixia Liu.

TVCGIEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics. 2022.

ieee arxiv pdf video preview presentation bib code

A Unified Understanding of Deep NLP Models for Text Classification

Zhen Li; Xiting Wang; Weikai Yang; Jing Wu; Zhengyan Zhang; Zhiyuan Liu; Maosong Sun; Hui Zhang; Shixia Liu.

TVCGIEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics. 2022.

ieee arxiv pdf video bib

The More, The Better? Active Silencing of Non-Positive Transfer for Efficient Multi-Domain Few-Shot Classification

Xingxing Zhang; Zhizhe Liu; Weikai Yang; Liyuan Wang; Jun Zhu.

MMACM International Conference on Multimedia. 2022.

acm pdf supplemental bib

Interactive Steering of Hierarchical Clustering

Weikai Yang; Xiting Wang; Jie Lu; Wenwen Dou; Shixia Liu.

TVCGIEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics. 2021.

ieee arxiv pdf video preview presentation bib

A Survey of Visual Analytics Techniques for Machine Learning

Jun Yuan; Changjian Chen; Weikai Yang; Mengchen Liu; Jiazhi Xia; Shixia Liu.

CVMComputational Visual Media. 2021.

springer arxiv pdf bib

Diagnosing Concept Drift with Visual Analytics

Weikai Yang; Zhen Li; Mengchen Liu; Yafeng Lu; Kelei Cao; Ross Maciejewski; Shixia Liu.

VASTIEEE Visualization Conference (VAST). 2020.

ieee arxiv pdf video preview presentation bib

Why AI Fails: Parallax

Lanxi Xiao; Weikai Yang; Haoze Wang; Shixia Liu; Qiong Wu.

XAIxArtsThe International Workshop on eXplainable AI for the Arts at the ACM Creativity and Cognition Conference. 2023.

XAIxArts pdf

Why AI Fails: Shortcut

Lanxi Xiao; Weikai Yang; Haoze Wang; Shixia Liu; Qiong Wu.

XAIxArtsThe International Workshop on eXplainable AI for the Arts at the ACM Creativity and Cognition Conference. 2023.

XAIxArts video

Talks

• [July. 2024] On Foundation Models Meet Visualization: Challenges and Opportunities @ ChinaVis Link
• [Apr. 2024] On Data-Centric Visual Analytics for Machine Learning @ HKUST-GZ Link
• [Nov. 2023] On Sample Representativeness-based Visual Analytics for Analyzing and Improving Model Performance @ The China-R Conference Link Slide Video

Selected Awards

• 2024 IEEE VIS Honorable Mention award
• 2024 Distinguished Doctoral Dissertation Award of Tsinghua University
• 2024 Outstanding Graduate of Tsinghua University (5%) and Beijing (10%)
• 2022 Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award of Tsinghua University
• 2019 Outstanding Undergraduate of Tsinghua University (2%) and Beijing (5%)
• 2017 Qualcomm Scholarship
• 2017 National Scholarship (1%)

Services

• PC Member
  • AAAI (2023-2024)
• Conference Reviewer
  • IEEE VIS (2021-2024)
  • PacificVis (2022-2024)
  • ChinaVis (2020-2023)
  • IUI (2024)
• Journal Reviewer
  • IEEE TVCG (2022-)
  • Visual Informatics (2022-)
• Student Volunteer: IEEE VIS (2020, 2022, 2023)
• Teaching
  • C++ Programming
• Teaching Assistantships
  • Discrete Mathematics I: Mathematical Logic and Set Theory (Fall, 2019-2024)
  • Discrete Mathematics II: Graph Theory and Abstract Algebra (Spring, 2019-2024)
  • Information Visualization and Visual Analytics (Fall, 2020-2024)

Miscellaneous

• I participated in the development of Human’: Ethical Reflection on Future Cyberworld Identity, a work of art that disucsses the cyberworld and our identity.
• I participated in the development of Gala Video Projection Show at the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics.
• I enjoyed sprint (12.11s/100m, 25.39s/200m). However, it is not enough to get a medal in Ma Yuehan’s Cup, which is one of my regrets in Tsinghua University.
• I have been a volunteer for Drop-in Tutoring for STEM Courses in Tsinghua University since 2015. I also made a lot of friends through this programs.