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Curriculum Vitae

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👋 I am Xinyi (pronounced “sheen-yee”), an Assistant Professor in the Computer Science Department at Boise State University, directing the Machine Intelligence and Data Lab (MIND Lab). Previously, I was a Postdoctoral Scholar in the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Washington. I earned my PhD in Computer and Information Science and Engineering from Syracuse University. I was recognized as a Rising Star in EECS by MIT (2024) and in Data Science by UCSD, UChicago, and Stanford (2024).

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CALL FOR PAPERS - The special issue “Explainable AI and Network Science for Social Systems and Collective Intelligence” in Information Processing & Management (impact factor: 8.1) is now accepting submissions. More details are available here.

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OPEN POSITIONS - My lab offers fully funded graduate student positions and welcomes undergraduate students. If you are interested in working with me, please email me with a brief introduction, your research interests, how your background aligns with our lab’s work, and your transcript and CV/resume.

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(Due to the volume of messages and my availability, I may not be able to respond to every email. However, all prospective student materials will be carefully reviewed, typically once or twice a month.)

🎓 My research develops and evaluates machine learning and foundation models with and for real-world societal impact, integrating data- and human-centric methods in pursuit of intelligent futures where people and AI co-thrive. Current interests include, but are not limited to:

• Trust and safety of generative AI
• Human-centered foundation models
• Agentic AI
• Multimodal AI/ML
• Use-inspired AI for the future of work, health, and education

My work has been published in journals such as CSUR (impact factor: 30.4) and conferences including WWW, CHI, CIKM, WSDM, and ICWSM, with 6000+ citations. It was featured in the ACM Showcase and media outlets such as Psychology Today. As PI/Co-PI, I received funding from Boise State and UW (Paul G. Allen School, School of Medicine, Population Health Initiative, and Center for an Informed Public). I am a Co-Chair for the WSDM 2026 Doctoral Consortium, a Guest Editor for Information Processing & Management, an Associate Editor for Frontiers in AI, serve on program committees for conferences such as WWW, KDD, AAAI, and SIGIR, and review for journals including TPAMI, TKDE, TOIS, TIFS, and TMM. I also actively collaborate across academia, industry, non-profits, and government.

News

September

• Invited to serve as Reviewer for WWW 2027.

July 2026

• Appointed Faculty Fellow for Idaho AI Combine.

June 2026

• Received Boise State TRANSFORM Seed Grant as PI. Our lab will collaborate with the Idaho Policy Institute and the City of Meridian on human-centered AI for real-world impact.
• Appointed Associate Editor for Frontiers in AI.
• Invited to serve as PC member for ICDM 2026, AAAI 2027.
• Invited to serve as Reviewer for KDD 2027 Datasets & Benchmarks, IJHCI.
• Will attend 2026 RAISE Health Symposium. See you in Stanford.

May 2026

• Will attend ICWSM 2026. See you in Los Angeles.
• Spoke as a panelist at Boise State 2026 AI Institute for Teaching and Learning Workshop.

April 2026

• Honored to receive the Early Scholar Award. Grateful to the department, college, and committee for support.
• One paper accepted to SocialLLM @ ICWSM 2026. Congrats to Prabal Shrestha, MS student in our lab, on being the leading author.
• Invited to serve as PC member for CIKM 2026.

March 2026

• Congrats to Ben Peterson, PhD student in our lab, on receiving a travel grant to the AI Unlocked Workshop by NSF ACCESS, NAIRR Pilot, and CU Boulder.
• Serve as Guest Editor for Information Processing & Management (CFP). Thanks to Tao Wen for leading this effort.
• Will attend 2026 Healthy Idaho CTR-D Conference. See you in Boise.

February 2026

• One paper accepted to Scientific Reports. Thanks to Haoning Xue for leading this effort.
• Will attend WSDM 2026 and chair the Doctoral Consortium track. See you in Boise.

January 2026

• Spoke as a panelist in the Idaho Technology Council Spark Series Online Workshops.
• One paper accepted for presentation at ICA 2026.
• More

Recent Work

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Personal

My parents and I had a rabbit named Maodu (毛肚). She crossed the rainbow bridge at the age of seven. I now live with a cat, Pumpkin, and a Westie named Funding.