Leilani Battle

Leilani Battle serves as Associate Professor in the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Washington and co-director of the UW Interactive Data Lab, holding the Robert E. Dinning Professorship in Computer Science & Engineering.

Her academic credentials include a B.S. in Computer Engineering from the University of Washington (2011), followed by an M.S. (2013) and Ph.D. (2017) in Computer Science from MIT, where she was part of the MIT Database Group. She completed a postdoctoral fellowship in the UW Interactive Data Lab in 2017.

Prof. Battle pioneers research at the intersection of databases, human-computer interaction, and visualization, developing interactive data-intensive systems for complex analytical tasks. Her work bridges data processing infrastructure with intuitive user interfaces to enhance analyst productivity. Primary research domains include database systems optimization, visual analytics for large-scale data exploration, and human-centered AI for data science workflows.

Her exceptional early-career contributions have earned:

• 2022 TCDE Rising Star Award (database community)
• 2023 IEEE VGTC Significant New Researcher Award (visualization community)
• MIT Technology Review 35 Innovators Under 35 (2020)
• Sloan Research Fellowship (2023)

Research funding spans Adobe, VMWare, Google, ORAU, and multiple NSF programs including Graduate Research Fellowship (GRF), CISE CRII, and CISE CAREER awards. As co-director of the UW Interactive Data Lab, she leads cross-disciplinary teams advancing next-generation data analysis tools and methodologies.