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Yalong Yang’s research lies at the intersection of Virtual, Augmented, and Mixed Reality (VR/AR/MR/XR), Information Visualization (VIS), and Human-Computer Interaction (HCI). As an Assistant Professor at Georgia Tech and director of the IVI Lab, his work focuses on designing and evaluating immersive environments that enhance data exploration and decision-making. His research explores how situated analytics and immersive technologies can bridge the gap between digital information and the physical world.
Yalong Yang’s teaching philosophy is centered on bridging the gap between theoretical foundations and practical applications in Information Visualization and Human-Computer Interaction. Having taught both graduate and undergraduate courses such as "Information Visualization" and "Research Topics in Visualization," he emphasizes hands-on, project-based learning that prepares students to design, develop, and evaluate complex interactive systems.
Yalong Yang’s recent research activities focus on the advancement of Immersive Analytics and situated visualization, exploring how data can be meaningfully integrated into physical environments through VR, AR, and MR. His work involves designing and evaluating novel interaction techniques that allow users to engage with complex datasets in 3D spaces, moving beyond traditional flat-screen interfaces.
* Zhang, Chenyang, Tiffany S. Ma, John Andrews, Eric J. Gonzalez, Mar Gonzalez-Franco, and Yalong Yang. "ForcePinch: Force-Responsive Spatial Interaction for Tracking Speed Control in XR." In Proceedings of the 38th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology, pp. 1-16. 2025.
* Yang, Haoyang, Elliott H. Faa, Weijian Liu, Shunan Guo, Duen Horng Chau, and Yalong Yang. "LITFORAGER: Exploring Multimodal Literature Foraging Strategies in Immersive Sensemaking." IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics (2025).
* Lu, Tao, Qian Zhu, Tiffany Ma, Wong Kam-Kwai, Anlan Xie, Alex Endert, and Yalong Yang. "Ego vs. Exo and Active vs. Passive: Investigating the Individual and Combined Effects of Viewpoint and Navigation on Spatial Immersion and Understanding in Immersive Storytelling." In Proceedings of the 2025 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, pp. 1-19. 2025.
* In, Sungwon, Eric Krokos, Kirsten Whitley, Chris North, and Yalong Yang. "Evaluating navigation and comparison performance of computational notebooks on desktop and in virtual reality." In Proceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, pp. 1-15. 2024.
* Tong, Wai, Meng Xia, Kam Kwai Wong, Doug A. Bowman, Ting-Chuen Pong, Huamin Qu, and Yalong Yang. "Towards an understanding of distributed asymmetric collaborative visualization on problem-solving." In 2023 IEEE Conference Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces (VR), pp. 387-397. IEEE, 2023.