Contributions
Here follows a summary of my contributions to the fields of human-computer interaction (HCI), data visualization, and visualization. References within square brackets refer to publications from my CV; these are also listed below.
Also see my biography page.
Professional Contributions
- Leading researcher in the field of human-computer interaction (since 2008), data visualization (2003), and visual analytics (2007).
- Director (7th since 1983) of the Human-Computer Interaction Laboratory (HCIL) at University of Maryland, College Park from 2016 to 2021.
- Papers co-chair for the IEEE InfoVis conference in 2016, 2017, and 2020 (the only person serving three times in this position).
- Distinguished Scientist of the ACM in 2018 (one of 40 appointed that year).
- Member of 4 journal editorial boards and 59 technical program committees (TPCs) since 2008.
Research Contributions
- Inventor of ubiquitous analytics in 2009 that enables anytime, anywhere sensemaking [J30]. Ubiquitous analytics is a more general precursor to immersive analytics.
- Inventor of the accessible data visualization topic within the scientific visualization community in 2019 [J68].
- Inventor of data comics in Fall 2014 [TC1, C54], and pioneer in data-driven storytelling.
- Inventor of olfactory data representations in 2019 [J61].
- Inventor of fluid data visualization in 2011 [J19].
- Research on immersive data visualization (prior to immersive analytics) in 2003 to 2006.
- Pioneer in collaborative visualization from 2011 to present [J18].
- Creator of many HCI and visualization systems, including ubiquitous analytics platforms [C37, J37, J63] as well as gestural [C53], touch [C28], full-body [C42], wrist-based [C49], and pen-based [J29] interaction.
- NSF CAREER award in 2013.
- Mentor for graduated doctoral (8) and masters (5) students.
Educational Contributions
- Co-author of the sixth edition of Designing the User Interface (2016), one of the leading HCI textbooks.
- Course designer for one of the world’s first graduate courses in Visual Analytics in 2009 at Purdue University (ECE 695D); documented in a 2012 IEEE CG&A article.
- Accommodations for enabling blind students to take UMD data visualization courses.
- Teaching and mentoring awards in 2012, 2014, and 2017.
Service Contributions
- Chair for the ACM CHI Viz subcommittee in 2020 and 2021.
- Papers co-chair for the IEEE InfoVis conference in 2016, 2017, and 2020.
- Chair for the ACM SIGCHI Outstanding Dissertation Award subcommittee for 2021–2023.
- Member at large in the IEEE Computer Society Publications Board in 2016.
- Member of 4 journal editorial boards and 59 technical program committees (TPCs).
- Series co-editor for the Springer Nature book series on Synthesis Lecture on Visualization.
Contributions to Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion
- Organizer and champion of a 2019 open letter to the IEEE VGTC on the representation of women and BIPOC scholars in the IEEE VGTC Visualization Academy.
- Increased representation of women in the IEEE InfoVis 2017 program committee by 35% compared to the prior year.
- Developed, recruited editors, and wrote the foreword for the Diversity in Visualization book in 2019.
Commercial Impact
- 3 U.S. PTO provisional patents.
- Expert witness work on touch interaction, Virtual/Augmented Reality, and computer graphics.
- Academic advisor and board member of Keshif, LLC from 2018 to 2021.
References
TC1. | Zhenpeng Zhao, Rachael Marr, Jason Shaffer, Niklas Elmqvist. Data Comics: Sequential Art for Data-Driven Storytelling. HCIL Technical Report, No. 15, 2015. |
J18. | Petra Isenberg, Niklas Elmqvist, Daniel Cernea, Jean Scholtz, Kwan-Liu Ma, Hans Hagen. Collaborative Visualization: Definition, Challenges, and Research Agenda. Information Visualization, 10(4):310–326, 2011. |
J19. | Niklas Elmqvist, Andrew Vande Moere, Hans-Christian Jetter, Daniel Cernea, Harald Reiterer, T. J. Jankun-Kelly. Fluid Interaction for Information Visualization. Information Visualization, 10(4):327–340, 2011. |
C28. | Sundar Murugappan, Vinayak, Niklas Elmqvist, Karthik Ramani. Extended Multitouch: Recovering Touch Posture and Differentiating Users using a Depth Camera. In Proceedings of the ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology, pp. 487–496, 2012. |
J29. | Waqas Javed, Niklas Elmqvist. ExPlates: Spatializing Interactive Analysis to Scaffold Visual Exploration. Computer Graphics Forum, 32(2):441–450, 2013. |
J30. | Niklas Elmqvist, Pourang Irani. Ubiquitous Analytics: Interacting with Big Data Anywhere, Anytime. IEEE Computer, 46(4):86–89, 2013. |
C37. | Sriram Karthik Badam, Niklas Elmqvist. PolyChrome: A Cross-Device Framework for Collaborative Web Visualization. In Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Interactive Tabletops and Surfaces, pp. 109–118, 2014. |
J37. | Sriram Karthik Badam, Eli Raymond Fisher, Niklas Elmqvist. Munin: A Peer-to-Peer Middleware for Ubiquitous Analytics and Visualization Spaces. IEEE Transactions on Visualization & Computer Graphics, 21(2):215–228, 2015. |
C42. | Sriram Karthik Badam, Feresteh Amini, Niklas Elmqvist, Pourang Irani. Supporting Visual Exploration for Multiple Users in Large Display Environments. In Proceedings of the IEEE Conference on Visual Analytics Science & Technology, 2016. |
C49. | Tom Horak, Sriram Karthik Badam, Niklas Elmqvist, Raimund Dachselt. When David Meets Goliath: Combining Smartwatches with a Large Vertical Display for Visual Data Exploration. In Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, paper no. 19 (13 pages), 2018. |
C53. | Andrea Batch, Hanuma Teja Maddali, Kyungjun Lee, Niklas Elmqvist. Gesture and Action Discovery for Evaluating Virtual Environments with Semi-Supervised Segmentation of Telemetry Records. In Proceedings of the IEEE Conference on Artificial Intelligence & Virtual Reality, pp. 1–10, 2018. |
C54. | Zhenpeng Zhao, Rachael Marr, Jason Shaffer, Niklas Elmqvist. Understanding Partitioning and Sequence in Data-Driven Storytelling: The Case for Comic Strip Narration. In Proceedings of the iConference, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol. 11420, pp. 327–338, 2019. |
J61. | Biswaksen Patnaik, Andrea Batch, Niklas Elmqvist. Information Olfactation: Harnessing Scent to Convey Data. IEEE Transactions on Visualization & Computer Graphics, 25(1):726–736, 2019. |
J63. | Sriram Karthik Badam, Andreas Mathisen, Roman Rädle, Clemens Nylandsted Klokmose, Niklas Elmqvist. Vistrates: A Component Model for Ubiquitous Analytics. IEEE Transactions on Visualization & Computer Graphics, 25(1):586–596, 2019. |
J68 | Jinho Choi, Sanghun Jung, Deok Gun Park, Jaegul Choo, Niklas Elmqvist. Visualizing for the Non-Visual: Enabling the Visually Impaired to Use Visualization. Computer Graphics Forum, 38(3):249–260, 2019. |