Alex Yang
Spatial Computing + HCI
My research explores how Spatial Computing techniques, grounded in HCI principles, can reshape the way we analyze and interpret multi-dimensional data.
I focus on innovating Immersive Visualization frameworks and designing systems for Cross-Reality Collaboration, enabling more intuitive and interactive data exploration across physical, virtual, and hybrid environments.
Education
Aug. 2024 — Present
Ph.D. in Computer Science
Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA
Advisor: Yalong Yang, Co-advisor: Polo Chau
Aug. 2022 — May 2023
M.S. in Computer Science
Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA
Specialization: Computational Perception and Robotics
Advisor: Polo Chau, Co-advisor: Thad Starner
Aug. 2019 — May 2022
B.S. in Computer Science
Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA
Concentration: Intelligence and Devices
Highest Honor, GPA: 4.00/4.00, Minor in Japanese
Research Experience
Aug. 2024 — Present
Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA
Graduate Research Assistant, School of Interactive Computing
Advisor:
Yalong Yang,
Polo Chau
Member of the IVI Lab and Polo Club of Data Science in Georgia Tech’s Visualization Lab, where we innovate at the intersection of data visualization, human-computer interaction, and artificial intelligence.
Aug. 2022 — May 2023
Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA
Graduate Research Assistant, School of Computational Science and Engineering
Advisor:
Polo Chau,
Thad Starner
Researched and developed interactive visualization systems and AI-driven data exploration frameworks for literature analysis, generative model curation, and ambient intelligence.
Sept. 2020 — May 2022
Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA
Undergraduate Research Assistant, School of Computational Science and Engineering
Advisor:
Polo Chau
Investigated immersive and web-based visualization techniques through the development of an AR platform for surgical planning and a web-based system facilitating interactive graph analytics learning.
Industry Experience
June 2023 — July 2024
Goldman Sachs, Dallas, TX
Software Engineer, Private Wealth Management
Mentor:
Japen Pathak
Designed, developed, and maintained scalable platforms for client portfolio management and data-driven financial analytics.
June 2022 — Aug. 2022
Goldman Sachs, Dallas, TX
Software Engineering Summer Analyst, Consumer and Wealth Management
Designed and delivered a real-time trading interface that streamlined trade monitoring and notifications. Collaborated with design and mobile teams to create a cohesive user experience across platforms.
Awards and Honors
2023
Best Paper Award, Honorable Mention at ACL Conference
For "DiffusionDB: A Large-scale Prompt Gallery Dataset for Text-to-Image Generative Models"
2023
Donald V. Jackson Fellowship Award
Selected to represent the School of Computational Science and Engineering as the outstanding first-year Master’s student at Georgia Tech
2021
Best Paper Award, Honorable Mention at IEEE VIS Conference
For "Argo Scholar: Interactive Visual Exploration of Literature in Browsers"
Publications
Journal
IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics (TVCG) Special Issue
IEEE International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality (ISMAR),
Daejeon, South Korea,
2025.
Conference
IEEE Visualization Conference (VIS),
Virtual,
2024.
ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI),
Honolulu, HI, USA,
2024.
IEEE Visualization Conference (VIS),
Virtual,
2024.
Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL),
Toronto, Canada,
2023.
Workshop
Workshop on Neural Fields Beyond Conventional Cameras
IEEE/CVF Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR),
Nashville, TN, USA,
2025.
Workshop on Ambient AI Multimodal Wearable Sensor Understanding
IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing (ICASSP),
Rhodes Island, Greece,
2023.
Poster
IEEE Visualization Conference (VIS),
Oklahoma City, OK, USA,
2022.
IEEE Visualization Conference (VIS),
Oklahoma City, OK, USA,
2022.
IEEE Visualization Conference (VIS),
Virtual,
2021.
Asian Conference on Computer Human Interaction (Asian CHI),
Virtual,
2021.
Demo
International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI),
Jeju, South Korea,
2024.
ACM Conference on Information and Knowledge Management (CIKM),
Atlanta, GA, USA,
2022.
Preprint
arXiv,
2025.
Teaching
Fall 2022 — Spring 2023
Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA
Data and Visual Analytics (CSE 6242 / CX 4242),
Instructor:
Polo Chau
Designed and developed teaching tools, held weekly office hours, and mentored student team projects for Data and Visual Analytics (CSE 6242 / CX 4242), a graduate course with over 2,000 students enrolled.
Mentoring
Fall 2025— Present
Lily Chisholm
B.S. in Computer Science, Georgia Institute of Technology
Cross-reality collaboration in immersive analytics
Spring 2025— Present
B.S. in Computer Science, Georgia Institute of Technology
Spatial interaction and immersive visualization methods
Spring 2025— Present
M.S. in Computer Science, Georgia Institute of Technology
User-centered design and qualitative analysis of immersive systems
Fall 2021 — Spring 2025
B.S./M.S. in Computer Science, Georgia Institute of Technology
AR visualization techniques for cardiac surgical planning
Donald V. Jackson Fellowship Award, Spring 2025
Now: Software Engineer at Figma
Fall 2021 — Spring 2022
B.S. in Computer Science, Georgia Institute of Technology
Interactive graph visualization design
Stamps President's Scholar
Now: Research Intern at Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Service
Reviewer
ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
(CHI)
2026
IEEE Conference on Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces
(VR)
2026
IEEE Visualization Conference
(VIS)
2025
ACM Symposium on Virtual Reality Software and Technology
(VRST)
2025
Workshop on Visualization for AI Explainability
(VISxAI) at IEEE VIS
2025
Institutional
Billiards @ Georgia Tech, Co-founder & Vice President, 2019 - 2020
Member
2021 — Present
Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)
2021 — Present
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)
References
Dr. Yalong Yang, Assistant Professor
School of Interactive Computing
Georgia Institute of Technology
Dr. Polo Chau, Professor
School of Computational Science and Engineering
Georgia Institute of Technology
Dr. Thad Starner, Professor
School of Interactive Computing
Georgia Institute of Technology