Community-Data Interaction

I am grateful for my community and the many colleagues, mentors, and enthusiastic public community members who shape and inspire me to push the boundaries of liminal and transdisciplinary spaces in my work.

I am part of ixLab, InnoVis and a visitor at the iLab and the Pain Studies Lab.

I'm a Ph.D. student supervised by Dr. Sheelagh Carpendale at the School of Interactive Arts & Technology at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada. In my doctoral research, I study data visualization as a design tool and a research approach to explore community – data interaction — the dynamic and context – specific ways in which data are visually gathered, interpreted, used, and shared across diverse communities. I aim to facilitate a community - involved democratic approach to data work that foregrounds community agency, histories, strengths, and collective know-how. Merging qualitative design-oriented methodologies, I facilitate cooperative research experiences to explore data visualization for social connection, sense-making, learning, and self-expression. For example, participants and collaborators use digital tools, pen-paper sketching, or familiar craft materials to build 3-D data representations called data physicalization. Through these interactions between community members and the researcher co-constructing data visualizations, we are able to explore nuanced social aspects of communities and data.

My multi-disciplinary professional and academic background informs my research practices — photography, nursing, public health, communication and culture, intersectional feminist approaches, teaching and learning, research through design, and information visualization.

My Google Scholar