Explainable Query Answering: drivers behind answers from databases and data streams

During his PhD studies, Pouya researched how to make database systems explain their own answers. Databases often turn millions of records into a single number – for example an average salary, total sales, or the average response time of an online service. Such summaries are useful, but they hide which parts of the data actually drive the result. Pouya developed methods that point to concrete groups in the data – for instance a particular job role, region or type of request – and show how much each group contributes to the observed number. One part of the work uses partial knowledge about cause and effect to separate factors that truly matter from misleading correlations. Another part makes the same kind of explanation fast enough for live data streams, where numbers keep changing as new information arrives. 

The research can help analysts, operators and decision-makers understand not only what the data says, but why.

The PhD study was completed at the Department of Computer Science, Faculty of Natural Sciences, Aarhus University.

This summary was prepared by the PhD student.

Time: Wednesday 19 November 2026, at 09:00
Place: Building 5342, room 333, Department of Computer Science, Aarhus University, Åbogade 34, 8200 Aarhus N
Title of PhD thesis: Transparent Data Management and Verification
Contact information: Pouya Khani, e-mail: pouya.khani11@gmail.com
Members of the assessment committee:
Associate Professor Boris Glavic, Department of Computer Science, University of Illinois, US
Professor Hua Lu, Department of Computer Science, Aalborg University, Denmark
Associate Professor Hans-Jörg Schulz (chair), Department of Computer Science, Aarhus University, Denmark
Main supervisor: Professor Ira Assent, Department of Computer Science, Aarhus University, Denmark
Co-supervisor: Professor Thai Son Mai, School of Electronics, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Queen's University Belfast, UK
Language: The PhD dissertation will be defended in English

The defence is public.
The PhD thesis is available for reading at the Graduate School of Natural Sciences/GSNS, Ny Munkegade 120, building 1521, 8000 Aarhus C.