Dongyu Liu is an Assistant Professor of computer science at the University of California at Davis, where he directs the Visualization and Intelligence Augmentation (VIA) research group. His research advances visualization-empowered human–AI teaming to augment human intelligence in data-driven decision-making. He develops two complementary foundations: human-centered AI methods that make models and agents more interpretable and steerable, and human–AI interfaces that help people connect complex data with domain expertise, examine the evidence behind AI outputs, and refine their goals as analysis unfolds. Guided by VIA Lab’s vision of “big data, intelligent algorithms, intuitive interfaces,” his work aims to make the path from data to decisions more effective and trustworthy, particularly in healthcare and environmental sustainability.

Before joining UC Davis, Dongyu was a postdoctoral associate at the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing, where he worked with Dr. Kalyan Veeramachaneni in the Data to AI group. He received his Ph.D. in Computer Science and Engineering from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology under the supervision of Prof. Huamin Qu. He has published dozens of papers in leading venues such as IEEE TVCG, IEEE VIS, ACM CHI, ACM CSCW, and ACM SIGMOD, and serves on organizing committees, program committees, and editorial boards across the field. His systems have been released as open-source projects such as Orion and have drawn wide attention from the open-source community. Several of his techniques have been adopted by leading companies, government agencies, and healthcare institutions, including Microsoft, Bosch, (satellite communication), (renewable energy), the Colorado Department of Human Services, UC Davis Health, and Zhejiang University Children’s Hospital. His research has been featured by UC Davis College of Engineering News, MIT News, Dataconomy, ScienceDaily, InfoQ, and Health IT Analytics.