Visualization for Data Empowerment

Abstract: The importance of effectively storing, managing, and analyzing data is well understood. In my research I am interested in taking the next step - using visualization to make data humanly usable, and comprehensible. Data visualization draws on knowledge from diverse fields such as computing science, design, cognition, perception, and graphics to create new interactive visual representations of data that are accessible, comprehensible, and explorable. In my research I hope to provide the means to glean more insight from data, and by enabling the exploration of this data, to discover answers to previously unasked questions. My goal is to empower people through use of visualizations, through the visualization of personal data, and through exploring how people can best understand the data that is increasingly part of their lives.

BIO: Sheelagh Carpendale is a Full Professor at Simon Fraser University in the School of Computing Science. She holds the NSERC/AITF/SMART Industrial Research Chair in Interactive Technologies. Her leadership role in the international data visualization research community has been repeatedly confirmed through many awards including the IEEE Visualization Career Award and being inducted into both the IEEE Visualization Academy and the ACM CHI (Computer-Human-Interaction) Academy. Her other awards include the Canadian NSERC E.W.R. STEACIE Fellowship, a British BAFTA (equivalent to an Oscar) in Interactive Learning; the Alberta ASTech Award, the Canadian Human Computer Communications Society Achievement Award. Her research focuses on information visualization, interaction design, and qualitative empirical research. By studying how people interact with information both in work and social settings, she works towards designing more natural, accessible and understandable interactive visual representations of data. She combines information visualization, visual analytics and human-computer interaction with innovative new interaction techniques to better support the everyday practices of people who are viewing, representing, and interacting with information.

A reception will be held for attendees at 2:00 p.m. in CS 150