My research aims to bridge data and lived experience through visualization. I study how cognitively accessible, human-centered design can democratize data access and transform the way people understand, connect with, and act on information.

The word 'VIS' with each letter designed with icons and text. The 'V' has a speech bubble with 'empathetic therapeutic' inside, 'O' is a light bulb, 'I' is a brain, 'C' is a light bulb with scissors, and 'E' has scissors and 'S' is a speech bubble with 'multi-sensory culturally relevant'. The phrase 'Cognitively Accessible Visualizations' is at the bottom.

Visualization x Data Accessibility

Data is everywhere, but not always accessible to everyone. Visualization aims to improve access, yet often assumes a standard user with advanced cognitive skills, excluding many. Originating from a collaboration in 2018 with the State of the States in IDD, we work with individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities—such as Down syndrome, autism, and cerebral palsy—to design more inclusive visualizations. Grounded in their lived experiences, our work helped establish the subfield of Cognitively Accessible Visualization, and continues to reimagine how data can be made cognitively inclusive, meaningful, and just for all.

A colorful infographic featuring puzzle pieces with smiley faces, building blocks, and various shapes. It includes text, arrows, and icons that are difficult to read, suggesting a diagram or educational chart.

Visualization x Extended Reality

Traditional data visualizations often remain flat and abstract, removed from the bodies, spaces, and emotions that shape how we experience information. Extended Reality (XR) offers new possibilities for making data more immersive, embodied, and situated. Our work explores how XR can enrich personal and collective engagement with data, whether in the field, in everyday life, or in deeply reflective contexts. By reimagining how data is felt, explored, and understood, we aim to expand what visualization can be in multi-modal, multi-sensory ways.

Illustration of two happy cartoon hearts, a pink heart and a blue heart, holding hands with a cloud and the word 'DATA' in the background, and a hand holding a smaller purple heart.

Visualization x Mental Health

Data goes beyond numbers, and visualization can support more than just analysis. Our work explores how visualization might foster self-understanding, metacognition, and emotional reflection, especially in the context of mental health. We’re particularly interested in how affective experiences shape and are shaped by data, and how visualization can support not only insight but also care, connection, and personal meaning-making. Through collaborations with practitioners and individuals, we reimagine visualization as a more emotionally attuned and human-centered practice.

Visualization x Artificial Intelligence

Visualization and AI increasingly shape one another: AI can power adaptive, efficient, and personalized visualizations, while visualization makes AI systems more interpretable, transparent, and human-centered. Our work explores these intersections, how machine learning can enhance visual design, how visualization can support AI literacy, and how visual tools can surface the social and ethical dimensions of data and AI practices. Through human-centered visual design, we aim to advance more inclusive, responsible, and value-driven uses of AI.

Four maps of the United States showing data visualizations, each with a color-coded legend and line graph beneath. The maps represent different variables with varying color schemes: shades of green, red, blue, and yellow. The line graphs below each map display relationships between two variables, labeled as 'a* + b*' and 'L + C' with corresponding scatter plots and trend lines.