I am a researcher and PhD candidate in the Human-Centered Computing (HCC) program at Georgia Tech. I am a member of the Information Interfaces Research Group , which is part of the broader Georgia Tech Visualization Lab . My PhD advisor is Dr. John Stasko . Before pursuing my PhD, I worked as a sports journalist and analyst after earning a Master's degree in Electrical Engineering.

Research Overview

My overarching research goal is to democratize data practices, encompassing data analysis, communication, and consumption. I pursue these interconnected objectives through a human-centric lens, leveraging the analytical power and aesthetic expressiveness of data visualization to reach, engage, and inform broader audiences.
My research spans information visualization, data science, human-computer interaction, and data journalism, with a focus on three key dimensions: (1) Designing analytical interfaces that utilize interactive visualizations to support data exploration, enabling users to derive actionable insights across diverse domains; (2) Developing authoring tools powered by Generative AI to simplify the creation of engaging and accurate data-driven content (e.g., visual data stories) by lowering technical barriers and enhancing expressiveness; and (3) Countering data-driven misinformation by examining how flawed data narratives and visuals can mislead audiences, and designing strategies, techniques, and tools to mitigate these challenges.

Publications

Full Papers

  • "The Data Says Otherwise" -- Towards Automated Fact-checking and Communication of Data Claims | ACM UIST'24
    Yu Fu, Shunan Guo, Jane Hoffswell, Victor S. Bursztyn, Ryan Rossi, John Stasko
    Proceedings of the 37th ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST '24), Article 134, 1–20.
    Paper Link
  • HoopInSight: Analyzing and Comparing Basketball Shooting Performance Through Visualization | IEEE VIS'23
    Yu Fu, John Stasko
    IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, vol. 30, no. 1, pp. 858–868, Jan. 2024. Paper presented at IEEE VIS'23.
    Paper Link Video
  • More Than Data Stories: Broadening the Role of Visualization in Contemporary Journalism | IEEE TVCG
    Yu Fu, John Stasko
    IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, vol. 30, no. 8, pp. 5240–5259, Aug. 2024.
    Paper Link
  • Supporting Data-Driven Basketball Journalism through Interactive Visualization | ACM CHI'22
    Yu Fu, John Stasko
    Proceedings of the 2022 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '22), ACM, Article 598, pp. 1–17.
    Paper Link Video

Short Papers and Posters

  • Managing Project Teams in an Online Class of 1000+ Students | ACM SIGCSE 2025
    Nazanin Tabatabaei Anaraki, Taneisha Ng, Gaurav Verma, Yu Fu, Martin Oconnell, Matthew Hull, Susanta Routray, Mahdi Roozbahani, Duen Horng Chau
  • Understanding the Effects of Visualizing Missing Values on Visual Data Exploration | IEEE VIS'21
    Hayeong Song, Yu Fu, Bahador Saket, John Stasko
    2021 IEEE Visualization Conference (VIS), pp. 161–165.
    Paper
  • HoopPad: A Controlled Defense Simulation with Masking Prompt | CASSIS 2024
    Xing Wang, Konstantinos Pelechrinis, Yu Fu, Chunyang Huang, Jianchong Shao, Zitian Tang, Miguel Gomez, Shaoliang Zhang

Experience

Georgia Tech Logo

Georgia Tech

Graduate Research/Teaching Assistant | Atlanta, GA | Aug. 2020 – Present

Tableau Logo

Tableau Research

Research Intern | Seattle, WA | May 2024 – Aug. 2024

Adobe Logo

Adobe Research

Research Scientist/Engineer Intern | San Jose, CA | May 2023 – Aug. 2023

Adobe Logo

Tencent, Titan Sports

NBA Journalist/Basketball Data Analyst | Washington, D.C., & Houston, TX | Sep. 2015 – Aug. 2020

Projects

some are for papers, most are for fun...

NBA GameViz

interactively visualizing NBA game information and advanced statistics to support novel narrative construction and insight communication.

NBA LineupViz

interactively visualizing NBA teams' lineup performance, with emphasis on advanced statistics and playing time

NBA Travel Route

interactive visualization interface that animates teams' traveling routes

Shot Quality

Participatory design project w/ ShotQuality.

BBallIndex Player Profile

Unfinished participatory design project w/ BBallIndex. It focuses on showing different advanced statistics generated by BBallIndex for each player.

SongBridge

SongBridge allows users to compare multiple playlists and visualize the connections and similarity between them.

Who didn't vote for me

interactively visualizing MVP voting results

MISC