Conversations, collaborations, and people shaping life at DiiD Lab.
2026
Yu’s first Computation + Journalism symposium
Yu attended his first Computation + Journalism Symposium (C+J) at Northwestern University in Evanston on October 2–3.
C+J 2026 symposiumThe theme was News Beyond the Newsroom: how people get their news from chatbots, influencers, and AI-generated summaries.
AI for journalists
Yu gave the invited talk AI for Journalists: Avoiding Errors When Working with LLM Tools and Resources at the Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE) Watchdog Workshop at UCF on September 26, 2026.
Workshop programThe talk explored how journalists can evaluate AI tools for reporting, recognize their limitations, and navigate ethical questions—connecting our research on trustworthy data communication with newsroom practice.
Welcome, Rittik and Yihao!
Rittik Barua joined DiiD Lab in Fall 2026. Yihao Zhou is currently a research assistant and will officially join in Spring 2027. Welcome to the team!
New preprint: How Data Narratives Go Wrong
How Data Narratives Go Wrong: A Taxonomy of Issues Across the Data Communication Process is now available as a public preprint on arXiv.
Read the preprintThe paper examines how problems arise as data becomes a narrative, supporting our research on trustworthy data communication and narrative integrity. Coauthored by Yu Fu, Jiawei Zhou, Sichen Jin, Munmun De Choudhury, Cindy Xiong Bearfield, and John Stasko.
Yu attended the IRE Conference in the D.C. area
Yu attended the Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE) Conference in National Harbor, Maryland, near Washington, D.C., and is building research collaboration with IRE.
IRE 2026 conferenceHeld June 18–21, 2026, the annual conference brought together journalists for investigative reporting, data, storytelling, and hands-on training.
HoopEval at MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference
Our paper HoopEval: Individual Player Action Evaluation via Deep Reinforcement Learning was presented as a poster at the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference 2026.
Read the paperThe work explores evaluating basketball decisions in their tactical context, with applications to sports analysis and player development. The conference’s research page provides the full paper and author list.
2025
Yu celebrated his Ph.D. graduation
Yu attended his Ph.D. graduation ceremony at Georgia Tech in December 2025.
Yu is forever grateful to his advisor, John Stasko, and everyone in the Information Interfaces (II) lab and Georgia Tech Visualization Lab for their mentorship, friendship, and support throughout his Ph.D. and beyond.
DiiD Lab launched
The lab launched at UCF with a focus on visualization, HCI, data-driven storytelling, and immersive visualization.
Yu joined UCF
Yu completed his Ph.D. in Georgia Tech’s Information Interfaces Group and joined UCF’s Department of Computer Science as a tenure-track Assistant Professor.
DataWeaver at EuroVis 2025
DataWeaver: Authoring Data-Driven Narratives through the Integrated Composition of Visualization and Text appeared at EuroVis 2025 in Computer Graphics Forum.
Read the paperYu Fu, Dennis Bromley, and Vidya Setlur explore how authors can compose visualizations and text together to create data-driven narratives.