About
I am currently a Postdoctoral Researcher working with Niklas Elmqvist at the Department of Computer Science at Aarhus University. I am part of the Center for Anytime, Anywhere, Analytics (CA3), where I mainly focus on human-centered AI and data visualization research in manufacturing domain. In parallel, I am also employed as a PostDoc (part-time) in the Research Unit of Computer Graphics at TU Wien, where I work with Eduard Gröller. Prior to this, I was a PhD student at the Visual Data Science Lab at the Johannes Kepler University, Linz, Austria under the supervision of Marc Streit.
My research interests include data visualization, storytelling with data, and human-centered AI. I work closely with domain experts to understand how they use and interact with data through visualization dashboards to make decisions. My work aims to improve their understanding of these dashboards through tools that I build together with my collaborators. Recently, I have started leveraging AI capabilities to enhance user understanding of visualization dashboards. I am curious about how AI will shape the future of data visualization and dashboards and reduce the knowledge gap between dashboard authors and users.
My work requires me to travel often between Denmark and Austria. When I am not traveling, I enjoy biking and petting cats wherever I go.
Publications
2026
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Sarah Lykke Tost, Adson Lucas de Paiva Sales, Henrik Østergaard, Vaishali Dhanoa, and Gabriela Molina León. 2026. InvestChat: Exploring Multimodal Interaction via Natural Language, Touch, and Pen in an Investment Dashboard.
In Proceedings of the 2026 International Conference on Advanced Visual Interfaces (AVI ’26), 1–3. https://doi.org/10.1145/3811427.3811529
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Mingyu An, Heyon Jeon, Sungbok Shin, Jinwook Seo, Eduard Gröller, Niklas Elmqvist, and Vaishali Dhanoa. 2026. Living Dashboards: Automatically Self-Updating Visualization Dashboards.
arXiv preprint arXiv:2610.08393. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2610.08393
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Vaishali Dhanoa, Duosi Dai, Gabriela Molina León, Eduard Gröller, and Niklas Elmqvist. 2026. The Future of Visualization Dashboards in the Age of Generative AI.
arXiv preprint arXiv:2609.35170. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2609.35170
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Vaishali Dhanoa, Gabriela Molina León, Eve Hoggan, Eduard Gröller, Marc Streit, and Niklas Elmqvist. 2026. Hey Dashboard!: Supporting Voice, Text, and Pointing Modalities in Dashboard Onboarding.
In Proceedings of the 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’26), 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1145/3772318.3791766
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Anton Wolter, Leon Haag, Vaishali Dhanoa, and Niklas Elmqvist. 2026. Context-Mediated Domain Adaptation in Multi-Agent Sensemaking Systems.
Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction 10, 4 (EICS 2026): 1–35. https://doi.org/10.1145/3812772
2025
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Anton Wolter, Georgios Vidalakis, Michael Yu, Ankit Grover, and Vaishali Dhanoa. 2025. Multi-Agent Data Visualization and Narrative Generation. Best Paper Runner-Up
IEEE Workshop on VISxGenAI. arXiv:2509.00481. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2509.00481
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Vaishali Dhanoa, Anton Wolter, Gabriela Molina León, Hans-Jörg Schulz, and Niklas Elmqvist. 2025. Agentic Visualization: Extracting Agent-based Design Patterns from Visualization Systems. Best Paper Runner-Up
IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications 45, 6: 89–100. https://doi.org/10.1109/MCG.2025.3607741
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Niklas Elmqvist, Eve Hoggan, Hans-Jörg Schulz, Marianne Graves Petersen, Peter Dalsgaard, Ira Assent, Olav W. Bertelsen, Akhil Arora, Kaj Grønbæk, Susanne Bødker, Clemens Nylandsted Klokmose, Rachel Charlotte Smith, Sebastian Hubenschmid, Christoph A. Johns, Gabriela Molina León, Anton Wolter, Johannes Ellemose, Vaishali Dhanoa, Simon Aagaard Enni, Mille Skovhus Lunding, Karl-Emil Kjær Bilstrup, Juan Sánchez Esquivel, Luke Connelly, Rafael Pablos Sarabia, Morten Birk, Joachim Nyborg, Stefanie Zollmann, Tobias Langlotz, Meredith Siang-Yun Chou, Jens Emil Sloth Grønbæk, Michael Wessely, Yijing Jiang, Caroline Berger, Duosi Dai, Michael Mose Biskjaer, Germán Leiva, Jonas Frich, Eva Eriksson, Kim Halskov, Thorbjørn Mikkelsen, Nearchos Potamitis, Michel Yildirim, Arvind Srinivasan, Jeanette Falk, Nanna Inie, Ole Sejer Iversen, and Hugo Andersson. 2025. Participatory AI: A Scandinavian Approach to Human-Centered AI.
arXiv preprint arXiv:2509.12752. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2509.12752
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Matheus Valentim, Vaishali Dhanoa, Gabriela Molina León, and Niklas Elmqvist. 2025. The Plot Thickens: Quantitative Part-by-Part Exploration of MLLM Visualization Literacy.
arXiv preprint arXiv:2504.02217. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2504.02217
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Vaishali Dhanoa, Andreas Hinterreiter, Vanessa Fediuk, Niklas Elmqvist, Eduard Gröller, and Marc Streit. 2025. D-Tour: Semi-Automatic Generation of Interactive Guided Tours for Visualization Dashboard Onboarding.
IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics 31, 1: 721–731. https://doi.org/10.1109/TVCG.2024.3456347
2024
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Conny Walchshofer, Vaishali Dhanoa, Marc Streit, and Miriah Meyer. 2024. Transitioning to a Commercial Dashboarding System: Socio-technical Observations and Opportunities.
IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics 30, 1: 381–391. https://doi.org/10.1109/TVCG.2023.3326525
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Vaishali Dhanoa. 2024. From Analysis to Communication: Supporting Users in Understanding Complex Spreadsheets and Dashboards.
Doctoral dissertation, Johannes Kepler University Linz.
2023
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Vaishali Dhanoa, Conny Walchshofer, Andreas Hinterreiter, Eduard Gröller, and Marc Streit. 2023. Fuzzy Spreadsheet: Understanding and Exploring Uncertainties in Tabular Calculations.
IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics 29, 2: 1463–1477. https://doi.org/10.1109/TVCG.2021.3119212
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Klaus Eckelt, Andreas Hinterreiter, Patrick Adelberger, Conny Walchshofer, Vaishali Dhanoa, Christina Humer, Moritz Heckmann, Christian Steinparz, and Marc Streit. 2023. Visual Exploration of Relationships and Structure in Low-Dimensional Embeddings.
IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics 29, 7: 3312–3326. https://doi.org/10.1109/TVCG.2022.3156760
2022
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Vaishali Dhanoa, Conny Walchshofer, Andreas Hinterreiter, Holger Stitz, Eduard Gröller, and Marc Streit. 2022. A Process Model for Dashboard Onboarding.
Computer Graphics Forum 41, 3: 501–513. https://doi.org/10.1111/cgf.14558
2020
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Matej Vukovic, Vaishali Dhanoa, Markus Jäger, Conny Walchshofer, Josef Küng, Petra Krahwinkler, Belgin Mutlu, and Stefan Thalmann. 2020. A Forecasting Model-Based Discovery of Causal Links of Key Influencing Performance Quality Indicators for Sinter Production Improvement.
AISTech: Proceedings of the Iron and Steel Conference. https://doi.org/10.33313/380/218
Talks
2026
Visualization, AI, Human-Centered AI, and AccessibilityNokia Bell Labs, Cambridge, UK
Agentic Visualization: Extracting Agent-based Design Patterns from Visualization SystemsEuroVis 2026, Nottingham, UK
Hey Dashboard!: Supporting Voice, Text, and Pointing Modalities in Dashboard OnboardingCHI 2026, Barcelona, Spain (April 2026)
Future of Dashboards in the Era of GenAI AgentsCHI 2026 Workshop, Barcelona, Spain (April 2026)
Agentic Visualization (two lectures, Human-Centered AI course, Spring 2026)Aarhus University, Denmark
2025
Agentic Visualization: Extracting Agent-based Design Patterns from Visualization SystemsTU Wien, Vienna, Austria
From Data to Communication: Supporting Interactive Exploration and Communication of DataTU Graz, Austria (Virtual)
Agentic Visualization: Extracting Agent-based Design Patterns from Visualization SystemsThe Alan Turing Institute, London, UK (Virtual)
2024
D-Tour: Semi-Automatic Generation of Interactive Guided Tours for Visualization Dashboard OnboardingIEEE Conference 2024, Florida, USA (Virtual)
2023
Fuzzy Spreadsheet: Understanding and Exploring Uncertainties in Tabular CalculationsIEEE Conference 2024, Oklahoma, USA
2022
A Process Model for Dashboard OnboardingEuroVis Conference 2022, Rome, Italy
Awards & Funding
Best Paper Runner-Up, IEEE CG&A 2025Agentic Visualization
Best Paper Runner-Up, IEEE VISxGenAI Workshop 2025Multi-Agent Data Visualization and Narrative Generation
Small Grant, Pro2Future GmbH 2024For expertise as a visualization researcher
Research stay funding, OEFG and Erasmus (approx. €4k) 2023Research stay at Aarhus University
CV
EDUCATION
PhD in Information VisualisationJohannes Kepler University, Linz, Austria · Oct 2019 – Oct 2024From Analysis to Communication: Supporting Users in Understanding Complex Spreadsheets and Dashboards
Visiting ResearcherAarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark · Aug 2023 – Oct 2023
Master in Computer Science (Pervasive Computing)Johannes Kepler University, Linz, Austria · Mar 2016 – Apr 2019
Bachelor’s Degree in Computer EngineeringJaypee Institute of Information Technology, Noida, India · Jul 2010 – May 2014
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
PostDocTechnical University, Vienna, Austria · Jan 2025 – Present
PostDocAarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark · Oct 2024 – Present
Senior ResearcherPro2Future GmbH, Linz, Austria · Jun 2019 – Dec 2024
Teaching AssistantJohannes Kepler University, Linz, Austria · Mar 2018 – Jun 2018
Software DeveloperIntel Mobile Communications, Linz, Austria · Jul 2016 – May 2019
Software EngineerPaxcel Technologies Pvt Ltd, New Delhi, India · Jan 2015 – Aug 2015
Software Engineer TraineeMTree Software Pvt Ltd, Noida, India · Jul 2014 – Jan 2015
CERTIFICATIONS
Project Management CertificationInternational Project Management Association · Nov 2023
Contact
dhanoa@cs.au.dk
Department of Computer Science, Aarhus University, Denmark