Portrait of Luthfi Balaka

Luthfi Balaka

PhD Student in Computer Science
The University of Chicago

I am a first-year Computer Science PhD student and an Eckhardt Graduate Scholar at the University of Chicago. My research focuses on designing AI-agent-driven systems for accelerating value extraction from tabular data.

Email LinkedIn GitHub Google Scholar CV

Latest Updates

  • The Pneuma-Seeker demo paper is accepted at CAIS 2026! Apr 2026
  • The Pneuma project paper is accepted at CIDR 2026! Oct 2025
  • I start my doctoral research at UChicago! Jun 2025
  • Pneuma is accepted at SIGMOD 2025! Jan 2025
  • I accept UChicago's CS PhD offer! Jan 2025

Publications

Pneuma-Seeker: Relational Reification of Information Needs for Agentic Data Discovery and Preparation Under Review at VLDB 2026

Luthfi Balaka, John Hillesland, Kemal Badur, Raul Castro Fernandez

Code Paper
Demonstration of Pneuma-Seeker: Agentic System for Reifying and Fulfilling Information Needs on Tabular Data CAIS 2026

Luthfi Balaka, Raul Castro Fernandez

Demo Paper
The Pneuma Project: Reifying Information Needs as Relational Schemas to Automate Discovery, Guide Preparation, and Align Data with Intent CIDR 2026

Luthfi Balaka, Raul Castro Fernandez

Paper
Pneuma: Leveraging LLMs for Tabular Data Representation and Retrieval in an End-to-End System SIGMOD 2025

Luthfi Balaka, David Alexander, Qiming Wang, Yue Gong, Adila Krisnadhi, Raul Castro Fernandez

Paper Code