Diversity in Visualization

Ronald Metoyer is an Associate Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Notre Dame. He earned his B.S. in Computer Science and Engineering at the University of California, Los Angeles (1994) and his Ph.D. in Computer Science from the Georgia Institute of Technology (2002) where he worked in the Graphics, Visualization and Usability Center. He previously served on the faculty at Oregon State University in the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (2001-2014). His primary research interest is in human-computer interaction and information visualization, with a focus on multivariate data visualization, decision-making, and narrative. He has published over 60 papers in top conferences and journals in human-computer interaction and computer graphics, and he is the recipient of a 2002 NSF CAREER Award for his work in exploring usability issues around the generation of animated character content for training scenarios. As an advocate for broadening participation in computing, he has served in many roles including several years on the program committee of the Richard Tapia Celebration of Diversity in Computing. He also serves as Assistant Dean in the College of Engineering at the University of Notre Dame.

Kelly Gaither is the Director of Visualization at the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) at the University of Texas, having joined TACC as Associate Director in September 2001. She received her doctoral degree in Computational Engineering from Mississippi State University in May 2000 and her masters and bachelor's degrees in Computer Science from Texas A&M University in 1992 and 1988, respectively. She has given a number of invited talks and published over thirty refereed papers in fields ranging from computational mechanics to supercomputing applications to scientific visualization. Over the past ten years, she has actively participated in conferences related to her field, specifically acting as general chair of IEEE Visualization in 2004.

David Ebert is a Professor in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Purdue University, a University Faculty Scholar, Director of the Purdue University Rendering and Perceptualization Lab (PURPL), and Director of the Purdue University Regional Visualization and Analytics Center (PURVAC), which is part of the Department of Homeland Security's Regional Visualization and Analytics Center of Excellence. Dr. Ebert performs research in novel visualization techniques, visual analytics, volume rendering, information visualization, perceptually-based visualization, illustrative visualization, and procedural abstraction of complex, massive data.Ebert has been very active in the visualization community, teaching courses, presenting papers, co-chairing many conference program committees, serving on the ACM SIGGRAPH Executive Committee, serving as Editor in Chief of IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, serving as a member of the IEEE Computer Society's Publications Board, serving on the National Visualization and Analytics Center's National Research Agenda Panel, and successfully managing research programs to develop more effective methods for visually communicating information.

Niklas Elmqvist is an associate professor in the iSchool (College of Information Studies) at University of Maryland, College Park. He received his Ph.D. in computer science in 2006 from Chalmers University in Gothenburg, Sweden, and has held research positions at Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, GA (Spring 2006), INRIA in Paris, France (Spring 2007), and Microsoft Research in Paris, France (2007-2008). Prior to joining University of Maryland, he was an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at Purdue University in West Lafayette, IN. His research area is information visualization, human-computer interaction, and visual analytics. He is the recipient of an NSF CAREER award as well as best paper awards from the IEEE Information Visualization conference, the International Journal of Virtual Reality, and the ASME IDETC/CIE 2013 conference. His research has been funded by both federal agencies such as NSF and DHS as well as by companies such as Google, NVIDIA, and Microsoft. He is also the recipient of the Purdue Student Government Graduate Mentoring Award in 2014, a Ruth and Joel Spira Outstanding Teacher Award in 2012, and the Purdue ECE Chicago Alumni New Faculty award in 2010.