HSL hosts first Data Visualization Showcase and Contest

By Barrie Hayes September 14, 2016

The inaugural Data Visualization Showcase and Contest at the UNC Health Sciences Library, held on April 5, highlighted UNC students’ work in data visualization in a competitive format. Four students from the Gillings School of Global Public Health and the School of Medicine (SOM) at UNC presented their work, which was assessed by three faculty judges. Xiaojuan Li, who is affiliated with the Department of Epidemiology and a predoctoral trainee at the UNC Kidney Center, earned first place with her presentation titled, “Visualizing longitudinal data from patients requiring complex chronic care to inform study design and analysis.” She took home a $100 Amazon gift card, while second place winner, Daniel Erim, received a $50 gift card for his presentation, “A model-based evaluation of the Abiye project to reduce maternal mortality in Ondo state, Nigeria.” Li will also get the opportunity to present her project at the Carolina Health Informatics Program (CHIP) Advisory Board Meeting later this month, where representatives from local companies like SAS, IBM, and Quintiles will be present.

Jennifer Walker, Xiaojuan Li (first place), Daniel Erim (second place), and Brenda Linares

From left to right, Jennifer Walker, Xiaojuan Li (first place), Daniel Erim (second place), and Brenda Linares, MLIS, outreach and liaison librarian.

Jamie Jarmul presented “Innovative methods for visualizing quality measures at UNC Hospital: “Hotspotting” areas with poor interactions between unit-based staff and service-based providers,” and Elliot Krause presented “Intraoperative electrode array positioning in tissue inferred by an impedance model.”

“I was pleased with the event. We had very diverse presentations, and I didn’t envy the job of those who judged the presentations; the scores were all very close,” said Cancer Information Librarian Jennifer Walker, MLS,  co-coordinator of the event and member of the Research Hub programming group. “I’m excited to host this event again in the future and see all the wonderful research being done by our students.”  

The judges included David Borland, Senior Visualization Researcher, from the Renaissance Computing Institute; David Gotz, Associate Professor of Information Science, School of Information and Library Science, and CHIP Assistant Director; and Emily Paff, IT Director at North Carolina Translational and Clinical Sciences Institute.

Representatives from CHIP and Davis Library’s GIS & Numeric Data Services were available to network with participants and answer questions about their programs.

Last modified: 03/19/21