Yutong Yang 杨雨彤
Shanghai Jiao Tong University
flora20@sjtu.edu.cn

Intro

Hi! I am a third-year master student in the Data Intelligence Visual Analytics Team at Shanghai Jiao Tong University and also a visiting student in PKU Visualization and Visual Analytics Group at Peking University, supervised by Prof. Xiaoju Dong and Prof. Xiaoru Yuan.

My research interests lie at the intersection of data visualization, humanities and social sciences. I’m passionate about using technology and creativity to delve into the humanities, and reflecting on the technology itself. It’s a pursuit fueled by a deep sense of empathy and a commitment to fairness. For me, an ideal work, even if it's a small force, should be truly valuable in enhancing mutual understanding and inclusivity among diverse individuals or societal groups. This might involve exploring individual differences impacting communication, revealing diverse life situations and perceptions, uncovering and presenting inequities, or advancing universal access to knowledge.

Additionally, I’m fascinated with the potential power of AI and look forward to exploring how human imagination can collaborate with it.

I enjoy reading, thinking, creating and also chatting with GPT. ☺️

Interest Tags — Interdiscipline, Data Humanism, Data Art, Visual Representation for Human, Subjectivity in Data Visualization, Social Science, Ethics, Reflections on InfoVis, Affective Visualization, Digital Humanities

News

🌱 [08/2024] City Pulse is accepted by IEEE VIS 2024 Arts Program as a pictorial!
🌱 [07/2024] LearnClusterVis wins first prize in ChinaVis 2024 Visual Analytics Challenge.
🌱 [06/2024] City Pulse is to be exhibited in China VISAP'24.
🌱 [04/2024] City Pulse is shortlisted in Visual Data Storytelling contest, PacificVis 2024.
🌱 [01/2024] EmoGeoCity is accepted by PacificVis 2024.

Research Works

Vis Application EmoGeoCity: Interactive Visual Exploration of City’s Historical and Cultural Evolution Based on Emotional Geography
Yutong Yang, Yinuo Liu, Qishuo Bai, Tianyi Zhou, Ziduo Ye, Xiaoju Dong
IEEE PacificVis 2024
EmoGeoCity is a digital humanities visual analytics system to study a city's cultural and historical evolution, connecting multidimensional data with emotion.
[Paper]
Data Art City Pulse: Revealing City Identity Through Abstraction of Metro Lines
Xinyue Chen, Yixuan Zhang, Yutong Yang, Jing Chen, Xiaoru Yuan, Weiping Chen, Rebecca Ruige Xu
IEEE VIS 2024 Arts Program; IEEE PacificVis 2024 Visual Data Storytelling Contest; China VISAP'24.
We reveal the region characteristics and tell the story about the development of metro by abstracting the city as a square, the metro route as a line, and using the width of the lines to represent the coverage of the routes.
[Paper][System][Video][Gallery]
Vis Application MBTIviz: A Visualization System for Research on Psycho-Demographics and Personality
Yutong Yang, Xiaoju Dong, Xuefei Tian, Yanling Zhang, Meng Zhou
International Conference of Pioneering Computer Scientists, Engineers and Educators, 2023.
MBTIviz is a system that visualizes the relationship between personality and demographic factors. It’s used in the study to calculate the distribution of age, gender, and occupation for each personality type, and explore the correlation between personality, occupation, and nationality.
[Paper]
Social Science 成长背景对教育获得的影响——以上海地区80后群体为例 (The Influence of Growth Background on Educational Attainment - An Example of Post-80s Group in Shanghai)
Yutong Yang, Yinuo Liu, Shengyi Han, Yunkang Chang, Yiwei Gong, Youwei Zhao, Xiaoju Dong
ChinaVis 2023 poster.
We investigated the impact of the growth background (including personal characteristics, region and family background) of the post-80s generation in Shanghai on educational attainment from the perspective of cultural reproduction, based on the “Shanghai Baseline Survey Data (FYRST2013)”.
[Poster][Description]

Other Projects

Extraction of Dialogue Characters in Ming and Qing Novels, 2023
  • Automatic identification: utilized rule-based, deep learning, and GPT to extract speakers and listeners.
  • User interaction: designed and implemented a dialogue annotation system for manually editing extracted errors.

    • Research on the cultural adaptation of foreign teachers in Chinese universities, 2022
  • Undergraduate thesis, a French research project supervised by Humanities Prof. Yi Ren.
  • Investigated and analyzed cultural adaptation among French teachers in a Chinese university through quantitative methods, identifying significant correlations with factors like living environment and teaching adaptation.
  • Conducted semi-structured interviews with six French teachers from various backgrounds to explore specific challenges and solutions.
    • [Paper]

    Social Practice: Inequity in the Spatial Distribution of Male and Female Public Restrooms, 2019
  • Observed the issue of women spending more time queuing for restrooms than men and planed and implemented a social practice.
  • Conducted on-site interviews with the managers of public restrooms at renowned Shanghai landmarks such as People's Square, Jing'an Temple, and Yu Garden.



    • Credit: web source from Prof. Xingyu Lan

    Some Words

    Expand

    More specifically, my interest lies at the intersection of two aspects: humanism and creativity. Along with my accumulated skills in visualization and data analysis, as well as my strengths in empathy, problem sensitivity, and critical thinking, they guide my path toward achieving my goals.

    - HUMANITY -

    In the aspect of humanism, the original intention is to be understood, and this kind of understanding extends to a wider range of the groups that I belong or empathize with. I’m always looking for an expression that breaks down the barriers of difference and allows for empathy between different people. For example, the group of people encompassing empathy, the idealists, the females, the minorities… Because differences of background, situation, characteristic like gender, perception, etc. lead to different choices of being. I thus want to speak aloud to let more people know what different kinds of groups are perceiving and give us all understanding and support, rather than criticize and marginalize the “abnormal” choices made. And understanding between the different us lies in a way, whether technical or humanistic, of true empathy.

    Thus, any effort related to revealing social conditions, advocating for the rights of marginalized groups, promoting equity and diversity, and fostering mutual understanding and inclusivity fills me with great meaning and enthusiasm.

    In the aspect of creativity, the journey of exploring visualization itself is exciting. I enjoy thinking out of the box and bringing the creativities into useful ideas. And I like using basic shapes to form novel designs. From another perspective, as Iris Murdoch said, art and morals are one, sharing the same essence: love. It embraces the power of humanistic care and inherently aims to break down walls of incomprehension. It transcends the self, representing the broadest realm of human insight.

    The act of expressing emotions, perceptions, dreams, and more through the medium of art, transcending the barriers of limited words can profoundly touch me.

    - TECHNOLOGY -

    I’ve grappled with the tug-of-war between reality and ideals since childhood. I chose to learn more about technology during my growth process, bridging the gap to reality and acquiring the ability to implement my ideas.

    My research experience in the field of visualization has empowered me with the ability to narrow down the broadly perceived problems and enhance my analytical skills. At the same time, I’ve been actively enhancing my abilities in social analysis as I persistently seek solutions for presenting and addressing the circumstances faced by minority and vulnerable groups, while advocating for a more equitable and inclusive society.

    - INTERDISCIPLINARITY -

    In light of all above, I find myself at the intersection of multiple disciplines.