Melanie Bancilhon, Ph.D.


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Contact me at m.bancilhon@gwu.edu

I am a US DEVCOM Army Research Laboratory Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Visual Cognition Lab at George Washington University. My current research is at the intersection of human-computer interaction, data visualization and AI-assisted decision-making with a focus on exploring individual differences.

I received my PhD in Computer Science from Washington University in St. Louis in 2024. My thesis focused on evaluating how individual differences and contextual factors impact decision-making with visualizations. Prior to earning my PhD, I received my Bachelor's in Computer Science with a double major in Architecture from Smith College.



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Education


Ph.D. in Computer Science May 2024
Washington University in St. Louis
B.A. in Computer Science May 2019
Smith College
B.A. in Architecture & Urbanism May 2019
Smith College

Experience


Postdoctoral Research Fellow Aug 2024-present
Army Research Laboratory, Washington DC
Researched human-AI teaming for visual search tasks. My work investigates the impact of individual differences on performance and reliance on AI-augmented CAD in visual search tasks.

AI Research Intern Summer 2023
IBM Research, Yorktown Heights NY
Led the design of a human-in-the-loop framework and interactive UI prototype for the AI-based system CARGO, enabling real-time refinement of microservice boundaries through user-driven labeling and data visualizations (HTML/CSS/JS/D3.js). Conducted case-study evaluations with software engineers, demonstrating the system’s usability and effectiveness.

Document Intelligence Research Intern Summer 2022
Adobe Research, San Jose CA
Conducted formative interviews with knowledge workers to uncover key factors and heuristics used in contract reviews. Built a prototype for an AI-assisted contract reviewing tool (HTML/CSS/JS/Dash.js) that facilitates exploration of the document space and in-situ reviewing while improving revenue forecasting confidence and reducing reviewers' cognitive load.

Social Dynamics Research Intern Summer 2018
Nokia Bell Labs, Cambridge UK
Conducted large-scale data mining and geospatial analysis to examine historical, cultural, and societal patterns in street naming across major global cities. Built a data pipeline to extract, clean, and enrich street name datasets, revealing geographic and temporal disparities in representation and how toponymy reflects local values and identity.

Awards


IEEE VIS Inclusivity and Diversity Scholarship 2022
NSF Smart Health & AI Student Awardee 2020
Sigma Xi Awardee 2019
Grace Hopper Scholar 2018

Service


EuroVis Short Paper Committee 2025
IEEE VIS Student Program Committee (VisComm) 2021 - 2022
IEEE VIS Reviewer 2022 - 2025
CHI Reviewer 2023 - 2025
CSCW Reviewer 2023
CRPI Reviewer 2024 - 2025

Conference Organizing

Student Committee Member, IEEE Visualization for Communication (VisComm), 2022

Student Committee Member, IEEE Visualization for Communication (VisComm), 2021


Conference Reviewing

IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics (TVCG), 2023

ACM SIGCHI Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work & Social Computing (CSCW), 2023

ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2023

IEEE Visualization for Communication (VisComm), 2022

IEEE Visualization Conference, 2022

IEEE Visualization for Communication (VisComm), 2020

European Creative Industry Summit (ECIS), 2020


Guest Lectures

Visualization Design Studio @ Columbia School of Nursing, 2022

Visualization for Decision-Making @ WPI, 2021


Mentorship & University Service

Student Mentor for the WashU First Gen Program, 2021 - 2023

Graduate Student Senator, 2020 - 2023

WashU representative and mentor at the Tapia Conference, 2022

DataKind Reviewer for the data.org Inclusive Growth and Recovery Challenge, 2020


Etc.