Ke Xu 徐科

Associate Professor · Nanjing University

Ke Xu (徐科)

About me

I am a tenure-track associate professor at School of Intelligence Science and Technology, Nanjing University, and I am also a member of PRLab@NJU. Previously, I have worked at Huawei as a "Genius Youth" (“天才少年”计划) where I led the team to build Huawei's first intelligent, AI-augmented and easy-to-use data visual analysis platform DataArts Insight. I was also a postdoctoral research associate at New York University (NYU), advised by Prof. Claudio Silva and Prof. Enrico Bertini and a visiting scholar worked with Prof. Hanspeter Pfister at Harvard University.

I earned my Ph.D. in Department of Electronic and Computer Engineering from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) in 2019, where I worked with my supervisor Prof. Huamin Qu.  Prior to my Ph.D. studies, I received my B.S. in Electronic Science and Engineering from Nanjing University (NJU) in 2015.

Research

My research interests, broadly, are AI-Driven Big Data Analytics, Visulization, Human-Computer Interaction and AI4Science. Specifically, I am interested in domains of visual anomaly detection, explainable AI, automated data insights, temporal data analytics and healthcare. My representative works include the ECGLens and Clouddet for visual anomaly detection in healthcare and cloud computing, respectively, the mTseer for explainable AI and a Survey for narrative visualization. I have won the ACM CHI 2018 Best Paper Honorable Mention Award.

News

  1. 获得苏州市科技镇长团优秀团员。
  2. CAMV was published by DSE
  3. Semtabla 获得ACM CHI最佳论文提名奖!!
  4. 我们有两篇文章: Semtabla, NetWorkCanvas, 被人机交互TOP1会议ACM CHI 2026接受,工作主力来自于本科实习生
  5. Vistoryteller was accepted by IUI 2026
  6. HYPNOS has been accepted by IEEE TVCG
  7. A survey paper on Narrative Visualization has been Published by IEEE TVCG
  8. 首届 华为杯无畏契约比赛亚军 (HW VCT)
  9. Huawei's first BI product DataArts Insight developed by my team, is now open for public testing

Join the group

We welcome undergraduate/graduate students, post-docs, research assistants and visiting interns/scholars. Please drop me an email if you are interested in our group.

课题组长期欢迎优秀的同学加入:

欢迎有AI、大数据分析、可视化和人机交互方向科研经历、学科竞赛获奖的同学邮件联系我。此外也接收对相关方向感兴趣的本科同学进组学习与科研。

Publications

CAMV: A Framework for Context-Aware Multi-View Visualization of Data Analysis Results — overview
DSE

CAMV: A Framework for Context-Aware Multi-View Visualization of Data Analysis Results

Yanna Lin, Liwenhan Xie, Leixian Shen, Zhuochen Jin, Sicheng Song, Zikun Deng, Huamin Qu, Ke Xu

Data Science and Engineering.

SemTabla: A Human-in-the-Loop Framework for Semantic Enrichment and Validation of Data Tables — overview
CHI

SemTabla: A Human-in-the-Loop Framework for Semantic Enrichment and Validation of Data Tables

Zhuochen Jin, Yingjie Mi, Yehang Zhu, Yichen Yao, Chongyang Yu, Ke Xu

Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems.

Best Paper Honorable Mention
NetworkCanvas: Supporting Progressive Network Visualization Exploration via Adaptive Recommendations — overview
CHI

NetworkCanvas: Supporting Progressive Network Visualization Exploration via Adaptive Recommendations

Wenchao Li, Yuewen Gao, Yu He, Cong Zhu, Ke Xu

Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems.

Vistoryteller: Designing Data Stories with LLM Agent-Based Generation and Interactive User Control — overview
IUI

Vistoryteller: Designing Data Stories with LLM Agent-Based Generation and Interactive User Control

Yang Shi, Chuyi Zheng, Zijian Yang, Ke Xu, Nan Cao

Proceedings of the ACM International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces.

HYPNOS: Interactive Data Lineage Tracing for Data Transformation Scripts — overview
TVCG

HYPNOS: Interactive Data Lineage Tracing for Data Transformation Scripts

Xiwen Cai, Xiaodong Ge, Kai Xiong, Shuainan Ye, Di Weng, Ke Xu, Datong Wei, Jiang Long, Yingcai Wu

IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics.

Leveraging Foundation Models for Crafting Narrative Visualization: A Survey — overview
TVCG

Leveraging Foundation Models for Crafting Narrative Visualization: A Survey

Yi He*, Ke Xu*, Shixiong Cao, Yang Shi, Qing Chen, and Nan Cao

IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics.

QEVIS: Multi-grained Visualizing of Distributed Query Execution — overview
TVCGVIS

QEVIS: Multi-grained Visualizing of Distributed Query Execution

Qiaomu Shen, Zhengxin You, Xiao Yan, Chaozu Zhang, Ke Xu, Jianbin Qin, Dan Zeng, Bo Tang

IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics.

Supporting Guided Exploratory Visual Analysis on Time Series Data with Reinforcement Learning — overview
TVCGVIS

Supporting Guided Exploratory Visual Analysis on Time Series Data with Reinforcement Learning

Yang Shi, Bingchang Chen, Ying Chen, Zhuochen Jin, Ke Xu, Xiaohan Jiao, Tian Gao, Nan Cao

IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics.

Interactive Visual Exploration of Longitudinal Historical Career Mobility Data — overview
TVCG

Interactive Visual Exploration of Longitudinal Historical Career Mobility Data

Yifang Wang, Hongye Liang, Xinhuan Shu, Jiachen Wang, Ke Xu, Zikun Deng, Cameron Campbell, Bijia Chen, Yingcai Wu, and Huamin Qu

IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics.

mTSeer: Interactive Visual Exploration of Models on Multivariate Time-series Forecast — overview
CHI

mTSeer: Interactive Visual Exploration of Models on Multivariate Time-series Forecast

Ke Xu, Jun Yuan, Yifang Wang, Claudio Silva, Enrico Bertini

Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems.

Towards Ground Truth Explainability on Tabular Data — overview
ICML

Towards Ground Truth Explainability on Tabular Data

Brian Barr, Ke Xu, Claudio Silva, Enrico Bertini, Robert Reilly, C. Bayan Bruss, Jason D. Wittenbach

ICML workshop on Human Interpretability in Machine Learning (WHI).

CloudDet: Interactive Visual Analysis of Anomalous Performances in Cloud Computing Systems — overview
TVCGVAST

CloudDet: Interactive Visual Analysis of Anomalous Performances in Cloud Computing Systems

Ke Xu, Yun Wang, Leni Yang, Yifang Wang, Bo Qiao, Si Qin, Yong Xu, Haidong Zhang, Huamin Qu

IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics

MOOCad: Visual Analysis of Anomalous Learning Activities in Massive Open Online Courses — overview
EuroVis

MOOCad: Visual Analysis of Anomalous Learning Activities in Massive Open Online Courses

Xing Mu*, Ke Xu*, Qing Chen, Fan Du, Yun Wang, Huamin Qu

21th EG/VGTC Conference on Visualization (Short Paper)

DataShot: Automatic Generation of Fact Sheets from Tabular Data — overview
TVCGInfoVis

DataShot: Automatic Generation of Fact Sheets from Tabular Data

Yun Wang, Zhida Sun, Haidong Zhang, Weiwei Cui, Ke Xu, Xiaojuan Ma, Dongmei Zhang

IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics.

EnsembleLens: Ensemble-based Visual Exploration of Anomaly Detection Algorithms with Multidimensional Data — overview
TVCGVAST

EnsembleLens: Ensemble-based Visual Exploration of Anomaly Detection Algorithms with Multidimensional Data

Ke Xu, Meng Xia, Xing Mu, Yun Wang, Nan Cao

IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics.

ECGLens: Interactive Visual Exploration of Large Scale ECG Data for Arrhythmia Detection — overview
CHI

ECGLens: Interactive Visual Exploration of Large Scale ECG Data for Arrhythmia Detection

Ke Xu, Shunan Guo, Nan Cao, David Gotz, Aiwen Xu, Huamin Qu, Zhenjie Yao, Yixin Chen

Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems.

Best Paper Honorable Mention (top 5% of all submissions)
EventThread: Visual Summarization and Stage Analysis of Event Sequence Data — overview
TVCGVAST

EventThread: Visual Summarization and Stage Analysis of Event Sequence Data

Shunan Guo, Ke Xu, Rongwen Zhao, David Gotz, Hongyuan Zha, Nan Cao

Proceedings of the IEEE Visual Analytics Science and Technology.

Teaching

CURRENT COURSE
Probability and Statistics (概率论与数理统计) for Undergraduate Students at Nanjing University (NJU, Fall 2026)

Awards & recognition

Earlier awards 7
  • Huawei "Young Genius" (天才少年) Program

  • Best Paper Honorable Mention Award, CHI'18

    ACM CHI Conference

  • Excellent Graduate of Nanjing University

    Nanjing University

  • First Prize of Red Sun Scholarship

    Nanjing University

  • Canadian Globalink Research Internship Award

    Mitacs

  • Baosteel Scholarship

    Baosteel Group, Nanjing University,
    for 2 of Sophomores in Nanjing University

  • National Scholarship

    Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China

Experience

  1. New York University, New York, U.S.

    Visiting Scholar (with Prof. Enrico Bertini and Prof. Claudio Silva), VIDA Lab

  2. Harvard University, Boston, U.S.

    Research Associate (with  Prof. Hanspeter Pfister),  Visual Computing Group

  3. Microsoft Research Asia, Beijing, China

    Research Intern,  Software Analytics Group

  4. Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Clear Water Bay, Hong Kong

    Ph.D Candidate,  VisLab

  5. Tongji University, Shanghai, China

    Visiting Scholar (with  Prof. Nan Cao),  iDVx Lab

  6. Nanjing University, Nanjing, China

    Research Assistant, Microelectronics Design Institute

  7. McGill University, Montreal, Canada

    Summer Intern (with  Prof. Kirk), Department of Material Engineering

Talks

More