HAE Lab

HKUST HAE Lab

We design interactive data systems that make complex data accessible, interpretable, and actionable for everyone. HAE Lab is an interdisciplinary research lab located at the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), led by Sehi L'Yi.

Our Research

Data Visualization

Designing systems for authoring and exploring visualizations.

Human–Computer Interaction

Understanding how people interpret and reason with visualizations.

Human–AI Collaboration

Building AI systems for interacting with large, complex, and high-dimensional data.

Data Accessibility

Improving access to data for people with diverse abilities and needs.

Biomedical Informatics

Applying our methods to biomedicine, health, and real-world challenges.

Selected Projects

Visualization Grammar for Genomics Data

arXiv 2026 TVCG 2026 Bioinformatics 2023 TVCG 2023 TVCG 2022

AI for Visualization Authoring

TVCG 2026 CHI 2026 arXiv 2025 GenAI@VIS 2025 TVCG 2025 TVCG 2025 Bioinformatics 2024 VIS Short 2023 CHI 2023 VIS Short 2023 TVCG 2023

Accessible Data Interactions & Representations

PLoS Comput Bio 2025 Scientific Reports 2025 AccessViz@VIS 2024 AccessViz@VIS 2024

Visual Analytics for Cancer Genomes

Nucleic Acids Research 2024 Bioinformatics 2023 Nature Methods 2023

News & Events

SERVICE Jan 20, 2026

Program Committee @ VIS 2026

Sehi is serving on the program committee for full papers at IEEE VIS 2026.

PAPER Jan 16, 2026

Visualization Design Knowledge Bases @ CHI 2026

A paper on formalized visualization design knowledge bases was accepted at CHI 2026.

SERVICE Oct 27, 2025

Program Committee @ PacificVis 2026 & EuroVis 2026

Sehi is serving on program committees for PacificVis 2026 and EuroVis 2026.

Join Our Lab

We are always looking for highly-motivated students and postdocs.

View Openings →

Selected Publications [see more]

	Automatic Synthesis of Visualization Design Knowledge Bases Hyeok Kim, Sehi L'Yi, Nils Gehlenborg, Jeffrey Heer In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’26) (2026) 25.3% acceptance rate
	A comprehensive evaluation of life sciences data resources reveals significant accessibility barriers Sehi L'Yi, Harrison G. Zhang, Andrew P. Mar, Thomas C. Smits, Lawrence Weru, Sofía Rojas, Alexander Lex, Nils Gehlenborg Scientific Reports (2025) 15, 23676
	Learnable and Expressive Visualization Authoring Through Blended Interfaces Sehi L'Yi, Astrid van den Brandt, Etowah Adams, Huyen N. Nguyen, Nils Gehlenborg IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics (TVCG) (Proc. VIS) (2025) 23.2% acceptance rate Best Paper Honorable Mention
	AltGosling: Automatic Generation of Text Descriptions for Accessible Genomics Data Visualization Thomas C Smits, Sehi L'Yi**, Andrew Patrick Mar, Nils Gehlenborg Bioinformatics (2024) Runner-Up Abstract Award at ISMB BioVis 2025
	Chromoscope: interactive multiscale visualization for structural variation in human genomes Sehi L'Yi, Dominika Maziec, Victoria Stevens, Trevor Manz, Alexander Veit, Michele Berselli, Peter J Park, Dominik Głodzik, Nils Gehlenborg Nature Methods (2023) 20, 1834–1835 Innovation In Cancer Informatics Major Grant Award 2023
	GenoREC: A Recommendation System for Interactive Genomics Data Visualization Aditeya Pandey, Sehi L'Yi**, Qianwen Wang, Michelle A Borkin, Nils Gehlenborg IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics (TVCG) (Proc. VIS) (2023) 29(1), 570-580 26.5% acceptance rate IEEE InfoVis Best Poster Research Award
	Gosling: A Grammar-based Toolkit for Scalable and Interactive Genomics Data Visualization Sehi L'Yi, Qianwen Wang, Fritz Lekschas, Nils Gehlenborg IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics (TVCG) (Proc. VIS) (2022) 28(1), 40-150 25.8% acceptance rate ISMB/ECCB BioVis Best Abstract Award

Media Coverage

Nature (TECHNOLOGY FEATURE)

A graphics toolkit for visualizing genome data

Powerful 'grammar' allows geneticists to display their data in interactive and scalable illustrations.