Yueqing Xuan

About Me

I am a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the School of Computing Technologies at RMIT University and a member of the Australian Research Council (ARC) Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society (ADM+S). I completed my PhD in Computer Science at RMIT University in 2026 under the supervision of Prof Jeffrey Chan, Prof Mark Sanderson, and Dr Kacper Sokol.

My research spans both algorithmic and human-centred perspectives on explainable and responsible AI. From an algorithmic perspective, I develop algorithms for counterfactual explanations and fairness-aware recommender systems. From a human-centred perspective, I conduct empirical studies to understand how people interpret AI explanations and develop interactive systems that support more appropriate use and interpretation of explainable AI methods.

My research interests include explainable AI, responsible machine learning, recommender systems, counterfactual explanations, and human-computer interaction.

Education

• Supervised by Prof Jeffrey Chan, Prof Mark Sanderson, and Dr Kacper Sokol.
• PhD Scholarship recipient of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society (ADM+S).
• Research focus: Explainable AI, responsible AI, recommender systems, counterfactual explanations, and human-computer interaction.
• Thesis: Accounting for User Diversity in the Pursuit of Fair and Explainable Machine Learning.

Specialised in Artificial Intelligence

• WAM: 84.50
• Relevant Coursework: Research Project, Natural Language Processing, Computer Vision, Statistical Machine Learning, etc.
• Achievements: Recognised on the Dean's Honours List 2021 at the University of Melbourne for top 5% students. Awarded Melbourne Graduate Scholarship 2022.

Major in Accounting and Information Systems

• WAM: 74.50
• Relevant Coursework: Database Management and Big Data, Information System in Business, Business System Analysis, Programming for Business, etc.
• Achievements: High Distinction (HD) average in programming subjects, Distinction (D) average in accounting subjects, Second place in COMP1531 (Software Engineering Fundamentals).

Publications

Conference and Journal Papers

• Yueqing Xuan, Kacper Sokol, and Danula Hettiachchi. "Explanation Navigator: Rectifying Out-of-Scope Human Interpretations of Leaky AI Explanations through Conversational Guidance". Under review, 2026. https://arxiv.org/2609.22707.
• Yueqing Xuan, Kacper Sokol, Mark Sanderson, and Jeffrey Chan. "Diversity-Augmented Negative Sampling for Implicit Collaborative Filtering". ACM Web Conference 2026 (WWW '26), 2026, https://doi.org/10.1145/3774904.3792346.
• Yueqing Xuan, Kacper Sokol, Mark Sanderson, Jeffrey Chan. "Evaluating and Addressing Fairness Across User Groups in Negative Sampling for Recommender Systems". Conference on Information and Knowledge Management (CIKM), 2025, pp. 3720-3729, https://doi.org/10.1145/3746252.3761263.
• Yueqing Xuan, Kacper Sokol, Mark Sanderson, Jeffrey Chan. "Perfect Counterfactuals in Imperfect Worlds: Modelling Noisy Implementation of Actions in Sequential Algorithmic Recourse". Machine Learning, 114, no.8 (2025): 187, https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10994-025-06821-1
• Kacper Sokol*, Edward Small*, Yueqing Xuan*. "Navigating explanatory multiverse through counterfactual path geometry". Machine Learning, 114, no.6 (2025): 1-33, https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10994-025-06769-2. *Equal contribution.
• Yueqing Xuan, Kacper Sokol, Mark Sanderson, Jeffrey Chan, "Leveraging Complementary AI Explanations to Mitigate Misunderstanding in XAI". 2025 IEEE Swiss Conference on Data Science (SDS), 2025, pp. 174-177, https://doi.org/10.1109/SDS66131.2025.00034.
• Yueqing Xuan, Edward Small, Kacper Sokol, Danula Hettiachchi, Mark Sanderson. "Comprehension Is a Double-Edged Sword: Over-Interpreting Unspecified Information in Intelligible Machine Learning Explanations". International Journal of Human-Computer Studies (IJHCS), 2024, 103376, ISSN 1071-5819, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhcs.2024.103376.

Workshop Papers

• Edward Small*, Yueqing Xuan*, Danula Hettiachchi* and Kacper Sokol*. "Helpful, Misleading or Confusing: How Humans Perceive Fundamental Building Blocks of Artificial Intelligence Explanations". In: Human-Centered Explainable AI (HCXAI) Workshop at CHI. 2023. [Slides]
• Kacper Sokol*, Edward Small*, Yueqing Xuan*. "Navigating Explanatory Multiverse Through Counterfactual Path Geometry". In: ICML (International Conference on Machine Learning) Workshop on Counterfactuals in Minds and Machines. 2023.

Work Experience

RMIT University, Melbourne

• Investigate how users misunderstand AI explanations and how conversational guidance can improve user comprehension.
• Design and develop an interactive explanation navigator that guides users towards appropriate AI explanations based on their information needs.
• Research supported by the Google Research Scholar Program (2025).

RMIT University, Melbourne

• Tutored undergraduate and postgraduate Algorithms and Analysis courses across four semesters.
• Led weekly tutorials and workshops, explaining algorithmic concepts and guiding problem-solving activities using Python.
• Marked assignments and examinations and provided academic support through student consultations.

The University of Melbourne, Melbourne

• Worked on the research project: Humanoid robotic arm control through verbal commands.
• Integrated the Porcupine wake-word engine and IBM Watson speech recognition system into the robotic arm control framework, and integrated the framework with the anthropomorphic robotic limb.
• Controlled and interacted with the humanoid robot for real-time control using verbal (natural language) commands.
• Demos of the experiments conducted in the lab environment can be found here.

The Altius Group, Sydney

• Managed, configured, and troubleshot a range of IT-related systems.
• Implemented and administered database documentation, guidelines, policies, and procedures.
• Performed application and hardware configuration deployment and troubleshooting.

Shanghai Institute of Technical Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai

• Worked in the Big Data team to analyse Geographic Information System (GIS) data by utilising the ContextCapture software.
• Designed and maintained database architecture, data structures, tables, dictionaries, and naming conventions to ensure the accuracy and completeness of all data master files.
• Performed the operational establishment and preventive maintenance of backups, recovery procedures, and enforced security and integrity controls.

Professional Activities

Peer Review

• CHI (2027), DMKD (2026), WSDM (2026), SIGIR (2023, 2025).

Leadership

• Organiser, RMIT Recommender and Responsible AI (R2AI) Reading Group.

Visiting Research

• USI Lugano (2025).
• University of Amsterdam (2023).

Funding

• Google Cloud Research Credits Program (2026).
• RACE Merit Allocation Scheme (2026).
• ADM+S Research Training Support Fund (2025).
• AMSI Scholarship Grant (2024).