Skip to main content
  • Home
  • About
  • Faculty Experts
  • For The Media
  • ’Cuse Conversations Podcast
  • Topics
    • Alumni
    • Events
    • Faculty
    • Students
    • All Topics
  • Contact
  • Submit
STEM
  • All News
  • Arts & Culture
  • Business & Economy
  • Campus & Community
  • Health & Society
  • Media, Law & Policy
  • STEM
  • Veterans
  • University Statements
  • Syracuse University Impact
  • |
  • The Peel
  • Athletics
Sections
  • All News
  • Arts & Culture
  • Business & Economy
  • Campus & Community
  • Health & Society
  • Media, Law & Policy
  • STEM
  • Veterans
  • University Statements
  • Syracuse University Impact
  • |
  • The Peel
  • Athletics
  • Home
  • About
  • Faculty Experts
  • For The Media
  • ’Cuse Conversations Podcast
  • Topics
    • Alumni
    • Events
    • Faculty
    • Students
    • All Topics
  • Contact
  • Submit
STEM

Students, Community Invited to New Info Visualization Meetup

Thursday, February 26, 2015, By Diane Stirling
Share
School of Information Studies

A community meetup on the topic of information visualization is being hosted by the School of Information Studies (iSchool) and Assistant Professor Jeff Hemsley.

An example of an information visualization

An example of an information visualization

The meetup will take place Tuesday, March 3, starting at 6 p.m. in the Katzer Room, 347 Hinds Hall. The event is open to all. Those planning to attend are asked to register at the “InfoVis Syracuse” meetup page.

The initial session will consist of a workshop and information about how to display data in innovative and informative ways. Hemsley will provide an introduction to D3, an interactive JavaScript visualization library. Attendees are invited to bring their laptops to the session so they can try building a web page with the script tool, something that most people, given some information and a little help, can do in a fairly short period of time, Hemsley observes.

Info Vis Community

This meetup is the first in what Hemsley hopes will become monthly or bi-monthly gatherings  on a range of information visualization topics of interest to the community. He said he plans to survey those attending the first event to determine specific interests, then coordinate future events to reflect those topics. He also envisions alternating meetup locations between the campus and locations at local business or in the community to promote a campus-community exchange.

Those interested in attending might include “anyone who collects  … designers who might want to start working with data; educators who are thinking about starting to teach elements of visualization; governments, who have a lot of data; and even artists,” he says. “The thing about information visualization is that it makes making sense of data a lot easier than looking at spreadsheets and columns of data. When we find ways to aggregate it and put it together, then we very quickly understand what we are looking at.”

Enthused Students

Hemsley currently teaches an information visualization class at the iSchool as part of its data science curriculum. He reflects that “My students love working on this stuff. They get to be creative, they get to make pictures, they’re just enthused and engaged. And I imagine there are others folks out there who are also enthused and engaged, or would just be interested in the topic.”

In addition, Hemsley sees mutual opportunities and benefits by bringing students and community businesses and groups together around this topic. Skilled students “have something to offer the [community’s] businesses. A lot of businesses have a lot of data, and some of them don’t necessarily know what to do with that data. Some are already working with the data, but might like to make their visualizations snazzier for communication purposes, or use visualization to explore what they already have,” he says.

Hemsley came to the iSchool in August 2014. His research looks at information diffusion in social media networks. As part of his work, he builds tools that collect, curate, visualize and analyze big data sets. He is a founding member of the iSchool’s Behavior, Information, Technology and Society Laboratory (BITS lab). At the University of Washington, where he received his doctoral degree, he was a founding member of the Social Media Lab. He is recognized as co-author of “Going Viral,” winner of a Best Science Book of 2014 Information award from the Association for Information Science and Technology, and also selected by Choice magazine as an outstanding academic title for 2014.

  • Author

Diane Stirling

  • Recent
  • Tiffany Xu Named Harry der Boghosian Fellow for 2025-26
    Friday, June 20, 2025, By Julie Sharkey
  • Registration Open for Esports Campus Takeover Hosted by University and Gen.G
    Thursday, June 19, 2025, By Matt Michael
  • 2 Whitman Students Earn Prestigious AWESOME Scholarship
    Tuesday, June 17, 2025, By News Staff
  • WiSE Hosts the 2025 Norma Slepecky Memorial Lecture and Undergraduate Research Prize Award Ceremony
    Friday, June 13, 2025, By News Staff
  • Inaugural Meredith Professor Faculty Fellows Announced
    Friday, June 13, 2025, By Wendy S. Loughlin

More In STEM

WiSE Hosts the 2025 Norma Slepecky Memorial Lecture and Undergraduate Research Prize Award Ceremony

This spring, Women in Science and Engineering (WiSE) held its annual Norma Slepecky Memorial Lecture and Award Ceremony. WiSE was honored to host distinguished guest speaker Joan-Emma Shea, who presented “Self-Assembly of the Tau Protein: Computational Insights Into Neurodegeneration.” Shea…

Endowed Professorship Recognizes Impact of a Professor, Mentor and Advisor

Bao-Ding “Bob” Cheng’s journey to Syracuse University in pursuit of graduate education in the 1960s was long and arduous. He didn’t have the means for air travel, so he voyaged more than 5,000 nautical miles by boat from his home…

Forecasting the Future With Fossils

One of the most critical issues facing the scientific world, no less the future of humanity, is climate change. Unlocking information to help understand and mitigate the impact of a warming planet is a complex puzzle that requires interdisciplinary input…

ECS Professor Pankaj K. Jha Receives NSF Grant to Develop Quantum Technology

Detecting single photons—the smallest unit of light—is crucial for advanced quantum technologies such as optical quantum computing, communication and ultra-sensitive imaging. Superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors (SNSPDs) are the most efficient means of detecting single photons and these detectors can count…

Rock Record Illuminates Oxygen History

Several key moments in Earth’s history help us humans answer the question, “How did we get here?” These moments also shed light on the question, “Where are we going?,” offering scientists deeper insight into how organisms adapt to physical and…

Subscribe to SU Today

If you need help with your subscription, contact sunews@syr.edu.

Connect With Us

  • X
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Youtube
  • LinkedIn
Social Media Directory

For the Media

Find an Expert Follow @SyracuseUNews
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Youtube
  • LinkedIn
  • @SyracuseU
  • @SyracuseUNews
  • Social Media Directory
  • Accessibility
  • Privacy
  • Campus Status
  • Syracuse.edu
© 2025 Syracuse University News. All Rights Reserved.