Yilin Xia

Hello, I am Yilin Xia

I am a Ph.D. student advised by Dr. Bertram Ludäscher and Dr. Matthew Turk in the School of Information Sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. I also work closely with Dr. Shawn Bowers (Gonzaga University), Dr. Evgeny Skvortsov (Google), ArviZ Team, and Dr. JooYoung Seo (UIUC).

I am broadly interested in Data Management, Knowledge Representation & Reasoning, and Data Visualization aiming to address data challenges through a Declarative Approach.
My current research explores both the practical and theoretical aspects of improving the modeling, querying, and reasoning of graphs, which includes:

Query Language: Logica — a logic programming language for data science, including large-scale graph data.

Graph Reasoning & Explanation: Driven by our theoretical work (SAFA@COMMA), I am developing PyArg 2.0 (WESE) to enhance reasoning in abstract argumentation frameworks.

Visual Graph Query Interface: Implementing graph query interfaces (DeepGit) to tackle real-world challenges, such as research software discovery and exploration.

Name Pronunciation

Ph.D. Student @UIUC

A Graph Farmer 🧑‍🌾

Featured Publications

EDBT'25

LogicLM: Robust Application of Large Language Models with Logic Programming for Data Analytics

Evgeny Skvortsov,Shayan Mirjafari, Ojaswa Garg, Yilin Xia, Shawn Bowers,
Bertram Ludäscher

COMMA'24

Layered Visualization of Argumentation Frameworks

Yilin Xia, Daphne Odekerken, Shawn Bowers, Bertram Ludäscher

EDBT'24

Logica: Declarative Data Science for Mere Mortals

Evgeny Skvortsov, Yilin Xia, Bertram Ludäscher

CHI'24

MAIDR: Making Statistical Visualizations Accessible with Multimodal Data Representation

JooYoung Seo*, Yilin Xia*, Bongshin Lee, Sean McCurry, Yu Jun Yam

IDCC'24

Reconciling Conflicting Data Curation Actions: Transparency Through Argumentation

Yilin Xia, Shawn Bowers, Lan Li, Bertram Ludäscher

CHI'23

CrowdIDEA: Blending Crowd Intelligence and Data Analytics to Empower Causal Reasoning

Chi-Hsien (Eric) Yen, Haocong Cheng, Yilin Xia, Yun Huang

Latest News

Jan, 2025 LogicLM has been accepted by EDBT 2025 Demo Track

Sept, 2024 We got two papers on Logica accepted by ICLP workshops Datalog2.0 & PEG

July, 2024 Attended SciPy'24 and presented two posters on JupyterLab NodeEditor (JLNE) and Arviz Dashboard

June, 2024 Our demo paper "Layered Visualization of Argumentation Frameworks" accepted for COMMA 2024

Feb, 2024 Our demo paper "Logica: Declarative Data Science for Mere Mortals" accepted for EDBT 2024

Jan, 2024 Our paper "MAIDR: Making Statistical Visualizations Accessible with Multimodal Data Representation" has been accepted for CHI 2024

Dec, 2023 Our manuscript "Reconciling Conflicting Data Curation Actions: Transparency Through Argumentation" has been accepted for IDCC 2024

Nov, 2023 Received $10,000 funding from NumFOCUS to work on project "Dashboard-assisted exploratory analysis of Bayesian models"

Nov, 2023 Our work "Games, Queries, and Argumentation Frameworks: Time for a Family Reunion!" has been accepted to AI^3 at AIxIA

Oct, 2023 Awarded $1,000 Conference Travel Grant from United States Research Software Engineer Association(US-RSE)

July, 2023 One workshop paper was accepted by XLoKR at KR2023

July 10-14, 2023 Thrilled to be part of Princeton University INTERSECT Program, supported by an NSF travel grant

May, 2023 Got Outstanding Review for IEEE VIS 2023

March, 2023 Our first (VISxProv)*Domain workshop proposal accepted by IEEE VIS 2023. Check out the workshop website

Feb 22nd, 2023 I led a seminar reading discussion on Knowledge Graphs in Action: a Tour of Extensions and Real-World Applications of the Vadalog System at UIUC iSchool

Jan, 2023 Our paper CrowdIDEA: Blending Crowd Intelligence and Data Analytics to Empower Causal Reasoning" has been accepted to CHI 2023

Featured Projects

This is a graph from the paper where it indicates how similar the argumentation and game theory are

Logica

Query Language

Logica is a logic programming language that compiles to SQL. It runs on Google BigQuery, PostgreSQL and SQLite.

Code Demo Paper

WESE

Graph Reasoning and Explanation

A visual interface designed to explain Stable Models and Well-Founded Semantics in the context of graph-based queries on Abstract Argumentation Framework

Code Demo

DeepGit

Graph Query; Query Interface

Promoting Discovery and Exploration of Domain-Specific Scientific Software using Large Scale Graphs

Code Demo

CrowdIDEA

Causal Graph Construction; Causal Reasoning

CrowdIDEA integrates crowd beliefs, data analytics, and causal diagrams into a tool for stimulating causal reasoning. Its design encourages exploration of causal relationships using collective insights

Code Demo

ArviZ Dashboard

Dashboards; Statistics; Model Comparison

Designed for Bayesian statisticians, this project transforms static visualizations into interactive dashboards with tools like Panel and Bokeh. It enables dynamic model comparison within a unified interface.

Code

Jupyterlab NodeEditor

End-user Programming; Software Engineering

A graphical user interface using a dataflow-driven visual programming language to enhance data science tasks. It provides domain experts with intuitive tools for complex data workflow.

Code Demo

MAIDR

Accessible Visualization

MAIDR offers non-visual access to statistical visualizations for users with visual impairments. It supports interaction through braille, text, sonification, and review (BTS + R).

Code Demo Paper