2011 Visualizing Research@Tufts Awards Program

Visualization is an important research tool that has been used to help understand data, processes, structures, and concepts in fields ranging from engineering to humanities and from health sciences to social sciences. The most widespread forms of visualization are graphs, pie charts, workflows, photographs and animations. When well-designed, visualizations are powerful tools for communication as they create a visceral, emotional connection to the results. By putting data into a spatial context, the researcher is able to convey more information and to support recall, inference, and decision-making.

UIT has been actively promoting scientific visualization as a research tool at Tufts since it collaborated with the School of Arts and Sciences and the School of Engineering to create the NSF-funded Tufts Center for Scientific Visualization in 2008. To further this effort, UIT launched last fall the first Visualizing Research@Tufts Awards program whose goals are to promote visualization as a research tool for all disciplines, showcase Tufts research projects, and provide opportunities for research collaboration. The program is based on the NSF’s International Science and Engineering Visualization Challenge.

For the Tufts visualization awards program, Tufts faculty and students actively participating in Tufts research projects were invited to submit materials in three different categories: photography, illustrations and non-interactive media. The entries were evaluated by a panel of seven judges who were selected from across the university:

• JT Chipman, Research Technology Fellow, UIT Research & Geospatial Technology Services
• Barbara Davis, Professor, Biomedical Sciences, Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine
• David Kahle, VP and Chief Information Officer, University Information Technology (UIT)
• Eric Miller, Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering & Associate Dean of Research, School of Engineering
• Elena N. Naumova, Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering & Director, Tufts Initiative for the Forecasting and Modeling of Infectious Diseases, School of Engineering and Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy
• Peggy Newell, Vice Provost
• Amy Schlegel, Director, Tufts Art Gallery

The judging committee awarded a first, second and third place winner for each category based on creativity, ability to communicate the research results effectively and clearly, and visual impact. The winners were:

Photography

1st Place: Bull's Eye
April D. Jewell, Graduate Student, Chemistry, School of Arts and Sciences
Charles H. Sykes, Associate Professor, Chemistry, School of Arts and Sciences

2nd Place: Digital Single Lens Reflex Camera Adaptor for Anterior and Posterior Segment Photography
Chris Pirie, Assistant Professor, Clinical Science, Division of Ophthalmology, Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine

3rd Place: InfoBiology: Steganography by Printed Arrays of Microbes (SPAM)
Manuel A. Palacios, Postdoctoral Associate, Chemistry, School of Arts and Sciences
Elena Benito-Peña, Chemistry, School of Arts and Sciences
Mael Manesse, Postdoctoral Associate, Chemistry, School of Arts and Sciences
David R. Walt, Professor, Chemistry, School of Arts and Sciences

Illustrations

1st Place: Tangled Agents: Socio-Political Power Struggles in Present-Day Thailand
R. Jordan Crouser, Doctoral Candidate, Computer Science, School of Arts and Sciences
Remco Chang, Assistant Professor, Computer Science, School of Arts and Sciences

2nd Place: Loop Emission from a Cosmic String
Ken Olum, Research Associate Professor, Physics and Astronomy, School of Arts and Sciences

3rd Place: Nosoi’s Quilt: Visualizing Large Comorbidity Data
Kenneth Chui, Public Health and Community Medicine, School of Medicine

Non-Interactive Media

1st Place: Urban Absorption in New Bedford, MA (1888-2010)
Justin Hollander, Assistant Professor, Urban and Environmental Planning & Policy, School of Arts and Sciences
Rui Guo, Graduate Student, Urban and Environmental Planning & Policy, School of Arts and Sciences

2nd Place: XROMM Pony
Bronwen A. Childs, Graduate Student, Comparative Medical Sciences, Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine

3rd Place: Heapviz: A Programmer’s Tool for Data Structure Visualization
Edward Aftandilian, Graduate Student, Computer Science, School of Arts and Sciences
Sean Kelley, Undergraduate Student, School of Arts and Sciences
Connor Gramazio, Undergraduate Student, School of Arts and Sciences
Nathan Ricci, Graduate Student, Computer Science, School of Arts and Sciences
Sara Su, Visiting Assistant Professor, Computer Science , School of Arts and Sciences
Samuel Guyer, Assistant Professor, Computer Science, School of Arts and Sciences

Special Jury Prize: Arrow of Time
Eric J. Chaisson, Research Professor of Physics, Astronomy, and Education, School of Arts and Sciences

View the video below highlighting all the entries that were submitted:

Rebecca Sholes, Senior Faculty Development Consultant, Educational and Scholarly Technology Services, UIT