Hi, I'm Shaolun Ruan

I am currently a Ph.D. candidate of Computer Science at Singapore Management University, under the supervision of Professor Yong WANG and Professor Jiannan LI. Before that, I received my bachelor degree from University of Electronic Science and Technology of China at School of Computer Science and Engineering in 2019. I became a research scholar at Monash University under the supervision of Tim Dwyer in 2025.

My research interests include Data Visualization and Human-Computer Interaction. My work focuses on developing human-centered computing tools to address complex scientific problems, facilitating the process of explainability and data-driven decision-making.
I am currently looking for jobs in academia. Feel free to contact me if you have any openings!


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🔥 News

  • 2025.07: 🏅 Our paper won the IEEE VIS'25 Best Paper Honorable Mention Award. Congrats team!
  • 2025.07: 🎉 Our two papers are accepted by IEEE VIS'25! See you in Vienna 🇦🇹.
  • 2025.03: Our paper SynthLens was accepted by IEEE TVCG.
  • 2025.01: I became a research scholar at Monash University in Melbourne 🌊🌊🌊 !
  • 2024.12: 🎄🎅🏻🎄Wishing you and your family a joyous Christmas filled with peace, love, and happiness!!🎄🎅🏻🎄
  • 2024.07: 🔥 Awarded the SMU SCIS Dean's List Award.
  • 2024.06: Awarded the SMU Presidential Doctoral Fellowship (2024).
  • 2024.05: Passed the Ph.D. Thesis Proposal.
  • 2023.12: Our paper was accepted by IEEE PacificVis TVCG track with 11.5% acceptance rate. See you in Tokyo!
  • 2023.11: Our paper was accepted by IEEE TVCG. See you in Florida!
  • 2023.07: Awarded the SMU Presidential Doctoral Fellowship (2023).
  • 2023.03: Our paper was accepted by EuroVIS'23. See you in Leipzig, Germany!
  • 2022.11: Passed the Ph.D. Qualifying Exam and became a Ph.D. candidate.
  • 2022.07: Our paper VACSEN was accepted by IEEE VIS'22! See you in Oklahoma City.
  • 2022.05: Our tutorial was accepted by IEEE QCE'22! See you in Broomfield, Colorado.
  • 2022.02: Became a Ph.D. student under the supervision of Yong WANG.
  • 2021.11: Our paper BatchLens was accepted by IEEE DATE'22 as the 1st author.
  • 2021.07: My paper Intercept Graph was accepted by IEEE VIS'21.
  • 2017.08: Completed Engligh Language Academy at the University of Auckland, New Zealand.
  • 2017.06: Became a Visiting Student at the Univeristy of Melbourne, Australia.

📝 Featured Publications

IEEE TVCG
Qualitative Study for LLM-assisted Design Study Process: Strategies, Challenges, and Roles

Shaolun Ruan, Rui Sheng, Xiaolin Wen, Jiachen Wang, Tianyi Zhang, Yong Wang, Tim Dwyer, and Jiannan Li

IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics (TVCG 2025).
IEEE VIS'25 Best Paper Honorable Mention

[pdf]

CHI 2025
Intuit: Explain Quantum Computing Concepts via AR-based Analogy

Manusha Karunathilaka*, Shaolun Ruan*, Lin-Ping Yuan, Jiannan Li, Zhiding Liang, Kavinda Athapaththu, Qiang Guan, and Yong Wang

ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (Late-Breaking Work) (CHI 2025).

[pdf] | sym |

IEEE VIS 2021
sym
Intercept Graph: An Interactive Radial Visualization for Comparison of State Changes

Shaolun Ruan, Yong Wang, Qiang Guan

Proceedings of IEEE VIS (VIS 2021).

[pdf] |

IEEE TVCG
sym
QuantumEyes: Towards Better Interpretability of Quantum Circuits

Shaolun Ruan, Qiang Guan, Paul Griffin, Ying Mao, Yong Wang

IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics (TVCG 2023).

[pdf] | | |

IEEE TVCG
VIOLET: Visual Analytics for Explainable Quantum Neural Networks

Shaolun Ruan, Zhiding Liang, Qiang Guan, Paul Griffin, Xiaolin Wen, Yanna Lin, Yong Wang

IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics (TVCG 2023).

[pdf] | sym |

EuroVis 2023
sym
VENUS: A Geometrical Representation for Quantum State Visualization

Shaolun Ruan, Ribo Yuan, Qiang Guan, Yanna Lin, Ying Mao, Weiwen Jiang, Zhepeng Wang, Wei Xu, Yong Wang

Computer Graphics Forum (Proceedings of EuroVis 2023).

[pdf] | |

IEEE TVCG
sym
VACSEN: A Visualization Approach for Noise Awareness in Quantum Computing

Shaolun Ruan, Yong Wang, Weiwen Jiang, Ying Mao, Qiang Guan

IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics (TVCG 2022).

[pdf] | |

sym
Towards Explainable Quantum AI: Informing the Encoder Selection of Quantum Neural Networks via Visualization

Shaolun Ruan, Rohan Ramakrishna, Chao Ren, Rudai Yan, Qiang Guan, Jiannan Li, Yong Wang

To be released.
IEEE TVCG
TrajLens: Visual Analytics for Constructing Cell Development Trajectories in Cross-Sample Analysis

Qipeng Wang, Shaolun Ruan, Rui Sheng, Yong Wang, Min Zhu, and Huamin Qu
IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics (TVCG 2025).

[pdf] | sym |

IEEE TVCG
SynthLens: Visual Analytics for Facilitating Multi-step Synthetic Route Design

Qipeng Wang, Rui Sheng, Shaolun Ruan, Xiaofu Jin, Chuhan Shi, and Min Zhu

IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics (TVCG 2025).

[pdf] | sym |

ImaGene:A Multimodal Visualization Tool for Gene-powered Cancer Prognosis

Shaolun Ruan, Zhikang Wang, Furui Cheng, Rui Sheng, Kai Qian, Jiangning Song, Jiannan Li, and Yong Wang

To be released.
DATE 2022
BatchLens: A Visualization Approach for Analyzing Batch Jobs in Cloud Systems

Shaolun Ruan, Yong Wang, Hailong Jiang, Weijia Xu and Qiang Guan

2022 Design, Automation & Test in Europe Conference & Exhibition (DATE 2022).

[pdf]

IEEE TVCG
PonxziLens+: Visualizing Bytecode Actions for Smart Ponzi Scheme Identification

Xiaolin Wen, Tai Nguyen, Shaolun Ruan, Qiaomu Shen, Jun Sun, Feida Zhu, and Yong Wang

IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics (TVCG 2024).

[pdf]

IEEE THMS
StoryExplorer: A Visualization Framework for Storyline Generation of Textual Narratives

Li Ye, Lei Wang, Shaolun Ruan, Heyu Wang*, Yuwei Meng, Yigang Wang, Wei Chen and Zhiguang Zhou

IEEE Transactions on Human-Machine Systems (THMS 2025).

[pdf]

IEEE PRDC
Visilience: An Interactive Visualization Framework for Resilience Analysis using Control-Flow Graph

Hailong Jiang*, Shaolun Ruan*, Bo Fang, Yong Wang, and Qiang Guan

IEEE Pacific Rim International Symposium on Dependable Computing (PRDC 2023)

[pdf]


🎖 Honors and Awards

  • 2025 - IEEE VIS 2025 Best Paper Honorable Mention
  • 2024 - SMU Presidential Doctoral Fellowship
  • 2024 - Dean's List Award
  • 2023 - SMU Presidential Doctoral Fellowship
  • 2019 - UESTC SCSE Outstanding Student Award

📖 Educations

  • From 2024.12, Visiting Research Scholar, Monash University, Australia.
  • From 2022.01, Ph.D. Candidate, Singapore Management Univeristy, Singapore.
  • 2019.07 - 2021.09, Research Assistant, Kent State University, U.S.
  • 2015.09 - 2019.07, Bachelar's Degree, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, China.

💬 Invited Talks

  • 2025.06, Invited talk - "Visualization towards addressing the explanation and decision-making of scientific problems", University of Technology Sydney & Western Sydney University |
  • 2024.05, Invited speaker - Research Talk and Panel Discussion in GAMES Webinar | [Link]
  • 2024.04, Invited talk - "Visualization towards Supporting the Application of Quantum Computing", Central South University
  • 2024.02, Invited lecture - "Stepping Into the Era of Interpretable Quantum Computing", QuCS Lecture Series, University of Notre Dame | [Link]
  • 2024.01, Invited talk - "Visualization towards Supporting the Application of Quantum Computing", Sichuan University |
  • 2024.01, Invited talk - "Towards Making Your VIS Paper Writing Better", University of Electronic Science and Technology of China (UESTC) |
  • 2023.12, Invited speaker - VAST Panel in VisLab HAI Seminar, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST)
  • 2023.11, Invited talk - "Visualization towards Supporting the Application of Quantum Computing", The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) |

 🧑🏻‍🏫 Teaching

  • 2025 Semester 2, Tutor, Studio 6, FIT3179 - Data Visualisation, Monash University
  • 2025 Semester 2, Tutor, Studio 12, FIT3179 - Data Visualisation, Monash University
  • 2023-24 Spring, Teaching Assistant, IS428 - Visual Analytics for Business Intelligence, SMU
  • 2024-25 Fall, Teaching Assistant, CS711 - Learning and Planning in Intelligent Systems, SMU

⭐️🌈 Upcoming Work