Kwan-Liu Ma

Timeline

1. 1986–1993

   Computer science at Utah

   He earns B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in computer science at the University of Utah in 1986, 1988 and 1993.

2. 1993–1999

   ICASE and binary-swap compositing

   From 1993 to 1999, he is a research scientist at ICASE, the Institute for Computer Applications in Science and Engineering, at NASA Langley Research Center. In 1994, he coauthors "Parallel volume rendering using binary-swap compositing" with James S. Painter, Charles D. Hansen and Michael Krogh.

3. 1999–2000

   UC Davis faculty and a PECASE

   He joins the UC Davis faculty in July 1999 and leads its VIDI (Visualization and Interface Design Innovation) research group. In 2000, he receives the NSF Presidential Early Career Award (PECASE).

4. 2003–2005

   Machine learning in volume visualization

   In 2003, his group brings machine intelligence into interactive volume data classification and visualization. In 2005, it shows how visualization can open the black box of machine learning, in the IEEE Visualization paper "Opening the Black Box - Data Driven Visualization of Neural Network" with Fan-Yin Tzeng as first author.

5. 2012–2013

   IEEE Fellow and a VGTC award

   He is elected an IEEE Fellow in 2012. In 2013, he receives the IEEE VGTC Visualization Technical Achievement Award.

6. 2018–2023

   Distinguished Professor and ACM Fellow

   UC Davis names him a Distinguished Professor in 2018, and he is inducted into the IEEE Visualization Academy in 2019. In 2023, he is elevated to ACM Fellow and receives the UC Davis College of Engineering's Outstanding Senior Career Research Faculty Award.

7. 2021–2025

   Visual analytics for neural networks

   In 2021, he coauthors VAC-CNN with Xiwei Xuan, Xiaoyu Zhang and Oh-Hyun Kwon, a visual analytics system for comparing deep convolutional neural networks. In 2024, he coauthors AttributionScanner, a human-in-the-loop system that finds data slices where vision models perform poorly; IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics publishes it in 2025.

8. As of October 2026

   Distinguished professor at UC Davis

   He is a distinguished professor of computer science at UC Davis, where he directs VIDI Labs and the UC Davis Center of Excellence for Visualization. His team of 20 researchers works on information visualization, scientific visualization, visual analytics, human-AI teaming and human-computer interaction, and his AI/ML work develops methods for validating models and interpreting their outputs. In December 2025, he gives the talk "AI x VIS Research Highlights and Future Perspectives" at National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University.