this is a background page with blue dot

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), and ArviZ Team.

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:

  • Graph Query Language
    EDBT'24, Datalog2.0'24
  • Graph Reasoning & Explanation
    ICAIL'25, COMMA'24, SAFA'24, CHI'23
  • Neuro-Symbolic & GraphRAG
    EDBT'25



Profile Image and My Procreate Arts


Ph.D. Student @UIUC


A Graph Farmer 🧑‍🌾




Featured Publications

COMMA 2024 Publication
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 2024 Publication
COMMA'24

Layered Visualization of Argumentation Frameworks

Yilin Xia, Daphne Odekerken, Shawn Bowers, Bertram Ludäscher

EDBT 2024 Publication
EDBT'24

Logica: Declarative Data Science for Mere Mortals

Evgeny Skvortsov, Yilin Xia, Bertram Ludäscher

CHI 2024 Publication
CHI'24

MAIDR: Making Statistical Visualizations Accessible with Multimodal Data Representation

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

IDCC 2024 Publication
IDCC'24

Reconciling Conflicting Data Curation Actions: Transparency Through Argumentation

Yilin Xia, Shawn Bowers, Lan Li, Bertram Ludäscher

CHI 2023 Publication
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


Mar, 2025    AF-XRAY got accepted by ICAIL'25 demo track! Let's enhance legal reasoning with AFs!
Mar, 2025    DeepGit received Google Cloud Credits, marking our first industry funding support for the project
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.

Web Code Paper
This is a graph from the paper where it indicates how similar the argumentation and game theory are
XRAY
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
This is a graph from the paper where it indicates how similar the argumentation and game theory are
DeepGit
Graph Query; Query Interface

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

Code Demo
CrowdIDEA Interface
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 Logo
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 Logo
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 interface with a braille display on the side
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