Dr. Arpit Narechania Receives the IEEE VGTC Visualization Dissertation Award

The Computer Science and Engineering Department is delighted to announce that Dr. Arpit Narechania, Assistant Professor, has been awarded the prestigious IEEE VGTC Visualization Doctoral Dissertation Award for his groundbreaking dissertation titled "Designing, Developing, and Democratizing Guidance for Visual Analytics." This award recognizes Dr. Narechania's exceptional contributions to advancing the fields of information visualization, visual analytics, and human–computer interaction.

Dr. Narechania's research addresses the critical challenge of enabling effective collaboration between humans and AI-driven visual analytics systems. His dissertation presents innovative approaches that enhance user understanding and interaction with complex data through adaptive guidance mechanisms. The work stands out for its intellectual rigor, clarity, and a visionary outlook that promotes the democratization of analytic guidance tools.

The award-winning dissertation encompasses three core areas:

• Design: Introduction of "interaction traces," a novel technique that visually captures a user's analytic focus by coloring visited data points to support real-time insight into user behavior. This concept was expanded into a versatile design framework incorporating various visual encodings and data transformations, as well as a comprehensive model for adaptive guidance communication across different states and UI elements.
• Development: Realization of the design through multiple visual analytics systems, including Debug-It-Yourself for debugging natural language to SQL workflows, DataPilot and DataCockpit for enhancing data preparation and data lake exploration, and several mixed-initiative systems (Lumos, BiasBuzz, ProvenanceLens, Lighthouse) aimed at mitigating biased analytical behaviors.
• Democratization: Commitment to open science through the release of ProvenanceWidgets, a JavaScript library of guidance-enriched UI components that help users track and interact with their analytic provenance, enabling personalized and dynamic guidance systems.

This accolade highlights Dr. Narechania's role in pushing the boundaries of visual analytics research with meaningful industry adoption and academic influence. The IEEE VGTC Visualization Dissertation Award is a testament to his significant impact on the field.

Please join us in congratulating Dr. Arpit Narechania on this outstanding achievement!

For more details about the IEEE VGTC Visualization Dissertation Award, visit the VGTC awards page.

For more details about Dr. Narechania and his dissertation, visit: https://narechania.com.

Certificate of the IEEE VGTC Visualization Dissertation Award.

Dr. Narechania accepting the IEEE VGTC Visualization Dissertation Award at the 2025 IEEE VIS Conference in Vienna, Austria.

Dr. Narechania at the 2025 IEEE VIS Conference.

Dr. Narechania, recipient of the IEEE VGTC Visualization Dissertation Award, at the 2025 IEEE VIS Conference.