Hi, I’m Yanna Lin

I am a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Waterloo, working with Prof. Jian Zhao in the WVisdom research lab.

Before joining Waterloo, I worked as a Postdoctoral Researcher and obtained my Ph.D. in Computer Science and Engineering from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), under the supervision of Prof. Huamin Qu in the VisLab. My Ph.D. was supported by the Hong Kong PhD Fellowship Scheme and recognized with the HKUST RedBird Academic Excellence Award for three consecutive years. I earned my Bachelor’s Degree in Software Engineering from Sun Yat-sen University, ranked 1/447. During my undergraduate studies, I was honored with the National Scholarship for three consecutive years (top 0.5%).

My research lies at the intersection of Human-AI Collaboration, Data Visualization, and Intelligent Interactive Systems. I study how users communicate intent to AI and understand AI behavior in complex analytical and data-intensive workflows. My work combines visualization, interaction, and AI techniques to develop human-centered systems for multimodal intent expression, AI reasoning interpretation and debugging, and data-driven decision-making.

I am actively seeking academic positions and industry research opportunities. Please feel free to contact me if you have any relevant openings or opportunities :)

Yanna Lin

Selected Publications

2026

DiLLS: Interactive Diagnosis of LLM-based Multi-agent Systems via Layered Summary of Agent Behaviors

Rui Sheng, Yukun Yang, Chuhan Shi, Yanna Lin, Zixin Chen, Huamin Qu, Furui Cheng
CHI 2026.
PDF

VeriLLMed: Interactive Visual Debugging of Medical Large Language Models with Knowledge Graph

Yurui Xiang, Xingyi Mao, Rui Sheng, Zixin Chen, Zelin Zang, Yuyang Wu, Haipeng Zeng, Huamin Qu, Yushi Sun, Yanna Lin*
arXiv 2026.
PDF

2025

Yanna Lin, Leni Yang, Haotian Li, Huamin Qu, Dominik Moritz
CHI 2025.
PDF Video Slides Supplementary

RhythmTA: A Visual-aided Interactive System for ESL Rhythm Training via Dubbing Practice

Chang Chen, Sicheng Song, Shuchang Xu, Zhicheng Li, Huamin Qu, Yanna Lin*
UIST 2025.
PDF Video Slides

2023

DMiner: Dashboard Design Mining and Recommendation

Yanna Lin, Haotian Li, Aoyu Wu, Yong Wang, Huamin Qu
TVCG (Early Access) 2023.
PDF Slides Supplementary

InkSight: Leveraging Sketch Interaction for Documenting Chart Findings in Computational Notebooks

Yanna Lin, Haotian Li, Leni Yang, Aoyu Wu, Huamin Qu
IEEE VIS2023/TVCG 2023.
PDF Video Slides Supplementary

Latest News

Awards

  • HKUST RedBird Academic Excellence Award

    An award in recognition of the outstanding performance and research capacity of the students
  • HKUST RedBird Academic Excellence Award

    An award in recognition of the outstanding performance and research capacity of the students
  • IEEE VIS Honorable Mention Award

    For “VBridge: Connecting the Dots Between Features and Data to Explain Healthcare Model”
  • ChinaVis Best Paper Nomination

    For “Modeling layout design for multiple-view visualization via Bayesian inference”
  • Hong Kong PhD Fellowship Scheme

    Highly competitive scholarship for the best and brightest students in the world to pursue their PhD studies in Hong Kong’s universities
  • National scholarship and First-class scholarship

    For top 2% students
  • Third prize in the south race area

    For the 17th National College Student robot contest
  • Meritorious Winner

    For 2018 American Mathematical Contest In Modeling
  • Second-class Prize in Guangdong

    For Contemporary Undergraduate Mathematical Contest In Modeling
  • Second-class Prize in Guangdong

    For the 14th Challenge Cup, the extracurricular academic and technological works competition for Guangdong college students
  • Honorable Mention

    For 2017 American Mathematical Contest In Modeling