Yifan Qian

Research Assistant Professor in Science of Science and Innovation

Professional Summary

I am currently a Research Assistant Professor at the CSSI, Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, United States. My research is broadly concerned with the science of science and innovation, and combines theories and methods from artificial intelligence, network science, data science, and social sciences. The general goal of my work is to measure and predict innovations in research institutions with large-scale data sets on scientific fundings, publications and their broad impacts on various facets of human society.

Email: yifan.qian1@kellogg.northwestern.edu

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Interests

Science of science Innovation Computational social science Network science Machine learning Data science

Featured Publications

Figures as Interfaces: Toward LLM-Native Artifacts for Scientific Discovery featured image

arXiv

Figures as Interfaces: Toward LLM-Native Artifacts for Scientific Discovery

Apr 9, 2026 • 1 min read

The Rise of Large Language Models and the Direction and Impact of US Federal Research Funding featured image

arXiv

The Rise of Large Language Models and the Direction and Impact of US Federal Research Funding

Jan 21, 2026 • 1 min read

SciSciGPT: Advancing Human-AI Collaboration in the Science of Science featured image

Nature Computational Science

SciSciGPT: Advancing Human-AI Collaboration in the Science of Science

Dec 9, 2025 • 1 min read

Funding the Frontier: Visualizing the Broad Impact of Science and Science Funding featured image

arXiv

Funding the Frontier: Visualizing the Broad Impact of Science and Science Funding

Sep 19, 2025 • 1 min read

Tenure and Research Trajectories featured image

PNAS

Tenure and Research Trajectories

Jul 29, 2025 • 1 min read

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Recent Publications

Yifang Wang, Rui Sheng, Erzhuo Shao, Yifan Qian, Haotian Li, Nan Cao, Dashun Wang (2026). Figures as Interfaces: Toward LLM-Native Artifacts for Scientific Discovery. arXiv.

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Yifan Qian, Zhe Wen, Alexander C. Furnas, Yue Bai, Erzhuo Shao, Dashun Wang (2026). The Rise of Large Language Models and the Direction and Impact of US Federal Research Funding. arXiv.

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Erzhuo Shao, Yifang Wang i

Equal contribution

, Yifan Qian i

Equal contribution

, Zhenyu Pan, Han Liu, Dashun Wang (2025). SciSciGPT: Advancing Human-AI Collaboration in the Science of Science. Nature Computational Science.

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Yifang Wang, Yifan Qian, Xiaoyu Qi, Yian Yin, Shengqi Dang, Ziqing Qian, Benjamin F. Jones, Nan Cao, Dashun Wang (2025). Funding the Frontier: Visualizing the Broad Impact of Science and Science Funding. arXiv.

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Giorgio Tripodi i

Equal contribution

, Xiang Zheng i

Equal contribution

, Yifan Qian i

Equal contribution

, Dakota Murray, Benjamin F. Jones, Chaoqun Ni, Dashun Wang (2025). Tenure and Research Trajectories. PNAS.

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In the Press

My research has been featured in leading media outlets: