Dianer Yu

Dianer YU

Research Fellow
City Futures Research Centre
The University of New South Wales (UNSW), Sydney
Email: Dianer.Yu1@unsw.edu.au

Google Scholar | ResearchGate | LinkedIn

About Me

My name is Dianer Yu. I am a Research Fellow at the City Futures Research Centre, University of New South Wales (UNSW), working with Scientia Professor. Chris Pettit. My specializations include data science, explainable artificial intelligence (XAI), causal inference, large language models (LLMs), housing analysis and recommender systems.

I completed my PhD in AI and Data Science at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS), supervised by Assistant Vice President & Chair Professor. Guandong Xu and Dr. Qian Li. I have authored over 20 Top-tier publications in premier AI venues such as TKDE, WWW, SIGIR, and TOIS, et al.

My work effectively bridges the gap between academic rigor and practical digital innovation, notably through leading research roles in projects like MapAI and Urban Copilot, which have secured over $8.8M in funding and contributed to our recognition in Geoawesome's Global Top-100 Geospatial Companies (2025).

Education

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in AI and Data Science

Thesis: Causal Model for Recommendation
Institution: University of Technology Sydney (UTS), Sydney, Australia
Duration: January 2022 – April 2025
Supervisors: Chair Prof. Guandong Xu and Dr. Qian Li
Awards: 2024 HDR Excellence Award (Runner-Up), Top-1 at School of Computer Science

Master of Information Technology

Institution: University of Technology Sydney (UTS), Sydney, Australia
Duration: 2021 – 2022
Awards:
– Dean’s List Award, 2021
– Dean’s List Award, 2022

Bachelor of Science in Information Technology

Institution: University of Technology Sydney (UTS), Sydney, Australia
Duration: 2015 – 2018

Work Experiences

Research Fellow - University of New South Wales (UNSW), Sydney

Apr 2025 – Present
  • Core AI researcher and developer in the MapAI project – conducting AI and LLM research for geospatial systems to support urban planning in NSW. This $1.3M project is trusted by leading partners like Tamworth Council, PEXA, Archistar, and Frontier, and has received:
  • Key AI researcher and developer in the Urban Copilot Project – $6.5M initiative (incl. $2.7M from Federal Government's Cooperative Research Centre's Projects Grants). My responsibilities include implementing Generative AI to translate complex planning regulations into actionable insights, supporting government priorities in housing supply and planning efficiency.
  • AI researcher in the Housing Analytics Lab (HAL)—a flagship initiative funded with $1 million by the NSW Chief Scientist to establish a hybrid facility for data-driven housing solutions across NSW. At HAL, I help develop AI-powered solutions and decision-support tools for government and industry. HAL was officially launched on 19 May 2025 by NSW Premier Chris Minns MP and Ministers Rose Jackson MP & Paul Scully MP, becoming a central hub for housing policy innovation.
  • Explored RAG and prompt engineering for factual, context-aware LLM outputs.
  • Developed scalable, privacy-compliant LLM pipelines aligned with GDPR/HIPAA.
  • Led causal ML research on interpretable AI architectures in geospatial modeling.

Academic Tutor - University of Technology Sydney (UTS)

Jan 2022 – Present
  • Delivering AI-related lectures and tutorials to postgraduate and undergraduate students, such as 41004 (AI/Analytics capstone project), 42046 (Data Processing using R), 48024 (Programming 2 Java \& Python) and 41181 (Information Security and Management).
  • Supervising and mentoring master's by research students, guiding them to conduct cutting-edge research in AI and machine learning, resulting in publications at top-tier conferences.
  • Organizing and supervising the capstone projects for over 200 students to ensure a seamless learning experience and project success.
  • Conducting thorough marking and grading of assignments, exams, and projects, providing constructive feedback to support student growth and achievement.
  • Offering continuous support through Q&A sessions, assessments, and prompt resolution of students' daily inquiries, fostering a conducive learning environment.
  • Collaborating with senior educators to refine course materials and teaching methodologies, contributing insights and suggestions to enhance the overall learning experience and align with industry standards.
  • Conducting thorough marking and grading of assignments, exams, and projects, providing constructive feedback to support student growth and achievement.

Developer Programmer - Quantum Facility Services, Sydney

Jun 2023 – Jun 2024
  • Developed Java/PHP systems, designed databases, and debugged for performance.
  • Maintained application quality via internal testing and corrections.
  • Created manuals, trained staff, and supported cross-department needs.
  • Managed warehousing, cleansing, and storage of large datasets.

Developer Programmer - All Employment Solutions, Sydney

Aug 2018 – Jul 2019, Jul 2020 – Feb 2022
  • Developed full-stack Java, Python, JavaScript systems and SQL databases.
  • Updated old code modules for stability and added new features.
  • Wrote and maintained tests, handled large-scale data processing.
  • Utilized AWS Cloud for scalable experiments and location-based A/B testing.

Developer Programmer - Bedworks, Sydney

Aug 2019 – Apr 2020
  • Developed PrestaShop-based shopping system using Agile methods.
  • Built landing/product pages, implemented AfterPay, enhanced site SEO.
  • Used AWS S3 for scalable storage and Cloudflare for bot tracking.
  • Collaborated cross-departmentally for iterative improvements.

Publications

[1] Counterfactual Explainable Conversational Recommendation
Dianer Yu, Qian Li, Xiangmeng Wang, Qing Li, Guandong Xu
IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering (TKDE), IF 10.4, Q1, Core A*
[2] A Causal-Based Attribute Selection Strategy for Conversational Recommender Systems
Dianer Yu, Qian Li, Xiangmeng Wang, Guandong Xu
IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering (TKDE), IF 10.4, Q1, Core A*
[3] Large Language Models meet Causal Inference: Semantic-Rich Dual Propensity Score for Sequential Recommendation
Dianer Yu, Qian Li, Sirui Huang, Guandong Xu
IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering (TKDE), IF 10.4, Q1, Core A*
[4] Breaking The Loop: Causal Learning To Mitigate Echo Chambers In Social Networks
Dianer Yu, Qian Li, Huan Huo, Guandong Xu
ACM Transactions on Information Systems (TOIS), Q1, Core A*
[5] Causality-guided Graph Learning for Session-based Recommendation
Dianer Yu, Qian Li, Hongzhi Yin, Guandong Xu
International Conference on Information Knowledge Management (CIKM 2023), Core A
[6] Deconfounded Recommendation via Causal Intervention
Dianer Yu, Qian Li, Xiangmeng Wang, Guandong Xu
Neurocomputing, IF 6.5, Q1
[7] Semantics-Guided Disentangled Learning for Recommendation
Dianer Yu, Qian Li, Xiangmeng Wang, Zhichao Wang, Yanan Cao, Guandong Xu
Pacific-Asia Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining (PAKDD 2022), Core A
[8] A Survey of Causal Learning in Graph-Based Recommender Systems
Dianer Yu, Qian Li, Balamurugan Soundararaj, Christopher Pettit, Guandong Xu
ACM Computing Surveys, IF 23.8, Q1, Core A*
[10] Learning Beyond Proximity: Causal Reasoning with LLMs for Robust POI Prediction
Dianer Yu, Qian Li, Ling Chen, Yangyang Shu, Zhichao Wang
ACM Transactions on Information Systems (TOIS), Q1, Core A*
[9] Large Language Models for Geospatial Intelligence: Foundations, Challenges, and Emerging Solutions
Dianer Yu, Balamurugan Soundararaj, Guanhua Wang, Christopher Pettit
Under Review, International Journal of Geographical Information Science (Q1)
[11] Think Before Answer: From Signals to Belief-Aware Strategy in Conversational AI
Dianer Yu, Balamurugan Soundararaj, Christopher Pettit
Under Review, International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML), Core A*
[12] Causal Disentanglement for Semantics-Aware Intent Learning
Xiangmeng Wang, Qian Li, Dianer Yu, Peng Cui, Guandong Xu
IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering (TKDE), IF 10.4, Q1, Core A*
[13] Reinforced Path Reasoning for Counterfactual Explainable Recommendation
Xiangmeng Wang, Qian Li, Dianer Yu, Qing Li, Guandong Xu
IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering (TKDE), IF 10.4, Q1, Core A*
[22] Disentangled Federated Transfer for Cross-Domain Recommendation: A Cluster-Tensor Perspective with Semantic Consistency Filtering
Jianli Zhao, Qingqian Guan, Dianer Yu, Wei Wang, Jinwen Liu, Huan Huo
IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering (TKDE), IF 10.4, Q1, Core A*
[23] FedMOR:Towards Responsible Federated Recommendation via Controllable Personalized Multi-Objective Learning
Qingqian Guan, Dianer Yu, Shangkun Liu, Liang Li, Siyu Chen, Huan Huo, Jianli Zhao
International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML 2026), Core A*
[14] MGPolicy: Meta Graph Enhanced Off-policy Learning for Recommendations
Xiangmeng Wang, Qian Li, Dianer Yu, Guandong Xu
ACM SIGIR Conference on Research and Development in Information Retrieval (SIGIR 2022), Core A*
[15] Off-policy Learning over Heterogeneous Information for Recommendation
Xiangmeng Wang, Qian Li, Dianer Yu, Guandong Xu
The Web Conference (WWW 2022), Core A*
[16] Causal Time-aware News Recommendations with Large Language Models
Sirui Huang, Qian Li, Haoran Yang, Dianer Yu, Qing Li, Guandong Xu
ACM Transactions on Information Systems (TOIS), Q1, Core A*
[17] Counterfactual Explanation for Fairness in Recommendation
Xiangmeng Wang, Qian Li, Dianer Yu, Qing Li, Guandong Xu
ACM Transactions on Information Systems (TOIS), Q1, Core A*
[18] Neural Causal Graph Collaborative Filtering
Xiangmeng Wang, Qian Li, Dianer Yu, Qing Li, Guandong Xu
Information Sciences, IF 8.1, Q1
[19] Constrained Off-policy Learning over Heterogeneous Information for Fairness-aware Recommendation
Xiangmeng Wang, Qian Li, Dianer Yu, Qing Li, Guandong Xu
ACM Transactions on Recommender Systems (TORS)
[20] Counterfactual Debiasing for Multi-behavior Recommendations
Sirui Huang, Xiangmeng Wang, Qian Li, Dianer Yu, Guandong Xu, Qing Li
International Conference on Database Systems for Advanced Applications (DASFAA 2024), Core B
[21] Reasonability Analysis and Application of Solar Energy Equipment Installation in QLD Smart City Using Information Technologies
Mingyue Guo, Dianer Yu, Shicheng Wu
International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Advanced Manufacture (AIAM 2021)
[24] From Features to Intent: Theory-of-Mind Guided Feature Learning in Recommender Systems
Wen-li Wang, Dianer Yu, Xiaofeng Meng, Guandong Xu
Under Review, ICML 2026 Core A*

Honors & Awards

  • Innovation Award – Oceania – Geospatial Council of Australia (2025)
  • Innovation Award – Medium to Large Business (NSW) – Geospatial Council of Australia (2024)
  • Technical Excellence Award (NSW) – Geospatial Council of Australia (2024)
  • UTS FEIT HDR Excellence Reward (Runner-Up) – UTS (2024)
  • UTS One-Off Scholarship – UTS (2024)
  • UTS President's Scholarship – UTS (2023)
  • UTS International Research Scholarship – UTS (2023)
  • Data61 Full Scholarship – CSIRO (2023)
  • Vice Chancellor's Conference Fund – UTS (2022)
  • UTS FEIT Dean's List – UTS (2022)
  • UTS FEIT Dean's List – UTS (2021)

Teaching Experiences

  • 41181 Information Security and Management – Tutor, UTS (2025)
  • 48024 Programming 2 – Tutor, UTS (2025)
  • 41181 Information Security and Management – Tutor, UTS (2024)
  • 48024 Programming 2 – Tutor, UTS (2024)
  • 42046 Data Processing using R – Tutor & Co-Lecturer, UTS (2023)
  • 48024 Programming 2 – Tutor, UTS (2023)
  • 42046 Data Processing using R – Tutor & Co-Lecturer, UTS (2022)
  • 41004 AI/Analytics Capstone Project – Tutor, UTS (2022)

Professional Services

Organizing Committee Member

  • IEEE Pacific Visualization Conference (PacificVis) - 2026
  • International Conference on Behavioural and Social Computing (BESC) & International Conference on Digital Society and Intelligent Systems (DSInS) – 2025
  • International Conference on Digital Society and Intelligent Systems (DSInS) – 2024
  • International Symposium on Emerging Technologies for Education (SETE) & International Conference on Web-Based Learning (ICWL) – 2023

Program Committee Member & Reviewer

Served as PC member or reviewer for:
KDD, ICDM, TKDE, CIKM, TCSS, KBS, PAKDD, PRICAI, DASFAA, WSDM, EMNLP, TIST, TORS, SIGIR, BESC, ECML, ECAI, WWW Journal, ICONIP, KIS, KNOSYS, Supercomputing, Discover Computing, IJMLC.

Membership

  • Australian Computer Society (ACS) – Member
  • Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) – Member
  • IEEE – Member, Young Professionals
  • University of Sydney, Centre for AI, Trust and Governance – Affiliate Member

News

  • We are organizaing a workshop at IEEE PacificVis 2026. I will serve as International Program Committee.
  • Two papers accepetd by TKDE and TOIS.
  • Dianer joins UNSW as a Research Associate from April/2025.
  • One paper is accepted by TKDE on Feb 2025.
  • Dianer has been rewarded as 2024 HDR Excellence Reward.
  • We are organizing conference DSInS on Nov 2024, Dianer is serving as organizing committee.
  • One paper is accepted by Information Science Journal on June 2024.
  • One paper is accepted by DASFAA24 on March 2024.
  • Two papers are accepted by TKDE and TOIS on Jan 2024.
  • One paper is accepted by TKDE on Sep 2023.
  • One paper is accepted by TORS on Nov 2023.
  • We are organizing conference ICWL and SETE on Nov 2023, Dianer is serving as local chair.
  • One paper is accepted by CIKM 2023.
  • One paper is accepted by Neurocomputing on Feb 2023.
  • Dianer is successful in UTS President's Scholarship.
  • Dianer is successful in CSIRO Data61 scholarship by Data61 scholarship selection committee.
  • Dianer has been rewarded as 2021 Postgraduate Dean's List.
  • Two papers are accepted by TKDE and SIGIR22.
  • Dianer started his PhD journey at UTS, one paper is accepted by PAKDD22 Core A.
  • Dianer has received MSc degree from UTS on 2021.
  • Dianer has been rewarded as 2020 Postgraduate Dean's List.
  • Dianer has received BSc degree from UTS on 2018.