3 Data Points from New DVS Board Members

I work at the intersection of finance, IT, and operations, where I currently lead a team of engineers and developers focused on data, analytics, and business intelligence. For a decade, I specialized in pricing and revenue management for restaurants and retail businesses. Before that, I leveraged manpower and financial data in support of banks, defense, lodging, and recreation businesses. In addition to my passion for data visualization, I love playing tennis and spending time with my pet Beagle.

I am an accomplished professional with a strong background in data visualization. I started my career in Human Resources, making a successful transition into the field of data visualization, showcasing my adaptability and commitment to professional growth. My educational background, with degrees in Organizational Leadership and Human Resource Management from the University of Cincinnati, has provided me with a solid foundation for my career.

Hi there! I’m Hailey Hannigan, Communications Director at DVS, accidental film enthusiast, and staunch defender of spiral graphs. I’m currently a Research Associate at Mathematica working to improve data viz practices and create innovative client deliverables. I’m based in Salt Lake City, Utah (for now) where you can find me hiking, biking, ice skating, and admiring the architecture in my neighborhood. Let’s talk current events, tennis, or upcoming concerts!

My dataviz journey started when I was introduced to Tableau about ten years ago. I became fascinated by color theory and other fundamentals of dataviz. The more I learned, the more I wanted to share to help other people. I’ve blogged, podcasted, and co-founded a variety of initiatives that the Tableau community embraces to this day. One thing I’m most proud of is founding a a global virtual conference in 2015. I love learning and now try to learn different tools to gain perspective.

I’m a long-time data visualization practitioner that has worked in academia and industry. My first experience with data visualization was with traditional GIS and later network visualization using tools like Gephi. But for the last decade and more it’s been mostly web development using libraries like D3, canvas and React. I feel data visualization needs to engage more with how people evaluate their place in a data-driven society and hope one day we have data products that let us analyze the patterns in our society and culture that are as sophisticated as how businesses analyze their performance.

I am an interdisciplinary scientist by training with a deep love for science communication, teaching, and learning how the world works. I hold a PhD in Biology from Harvard University, where I discovered and fell deeply in love with the field of dataviz. I have recently stepped into the Early Career Director position at DVS and am currently enrolled in the Data Analytics and Visualization program at MICA. Outside of work, you can find me pursuing wildlife photography and rock climbing.

I am Danne Woo, the Education Director. Currently, I serve as an Assistant Professor of Design Technology at Queens College, CUNY, located in Queens, NY. Here, I teach several classes that intertwine design, data, and technology. I’m also the proud founder of Datavisual, a data visualization design platform. My journey in the data visualization field spans about 20 years, during which I’ve embraced the roles of a designer and a full-stack developer. I reside in Connecticut, where I enjoy life with my wife, our 7-year-old daughter, and our dog.

Hello DVS community! I’m Pierre and I’ll be taking up the partnerships director role for this slate. My personal background is in advanced analytics and management of technology teams. I’m passionate about Data Visualization because it’s the often under-represented, but yet most important aspect of communicating information. I’ll be working on corporate, academia, and other not-for-profit type of partnerships to bring more value to the DVS community. Feel free to reach out to me anytime!

Radar chart

Unit Histogram

I’d be a a bar chart. You can dress it up or keep it plain.

Sankey

Probably a network. It’s constantly growing, making new connections, and providing new insights with every addition. And sometimes they’re just a hairball that needs a good untangling and that’s okay.

Waffle chart made up of coconuts and palm fronds

I’d create a viz about how many days I’ve been stuck. And I’d use a tally chart, which I could make with a stick or my finger and could write in the sand or try to etch on anything that’s around me.

A map of the island resources and the currents and wind patterns of the ocean around me so I could escape or survive if escape is impossible.

I’d probably have a few going, like tracking environmental data (e.g. how often it rains and how much to inform water collection, wind directions), plotting resource locations and supplies around the island and surrounding water (e.g. where fish like to hang out), and probably something for fun to keep me entertained, like characterizing terrestrial or aquatic animal diversity. I’d try to use heavier objects like rocks and engrave glyphs on them if possible.

Hexagonal maps of the USA

My favorite viz of all time, The Firebird Suite : Infernal Dance by Dinushki De Livera

I LOVE Periscopic’s Gun Deaths visualization. From how they derived the data to the emotion they illicited through the design, I would love to create something so meaningful.

Ben Fry’s visualization of the editions of the Origin of Species because it shows how books and the concepts they enshrine are not static but evolve over time.

Anything tennis related, especially leveraging Hawkeye data

Light quality around the world. I saw an episode of “Abstract: The Art of Design” on Netflix and Olafur Eliasson was showing how different light looked at the same time of day all over the world in the same weather conditions. This visualization might require extensive travel or some very thought-out worldwide coordination!

I have too many ideas to just pick one. Since we’re gearing up for baseball season (Go O’s), I’d love to compare the stats of the Orioles players vs other players in the AL East to prove my hypothesis that the O’s starters are just as good or better player for player than other teams in the AL East.

How people’s lives and priorities change over the course of their life.

US Military

Easy – I would be a professional figure skater. I took a class at the Salt Lake Olympic Oval when I was young and have loved it ever since. I must not have done a good job at conveying to my parents just how much since that was the only class I took till my senior year of university!

Philanthropist. I’m not sure that’s actually an occupation, but I would love to attend galas and donate money to help as many causes as I can that are meaningful to me.

Ranching

Professional tennis player. Completely unrealistic, but I have been playing tennis and obsessed with it for a few years now.

It’s important to consistently show up on time

Not listening to my “jealousies” earlier. When working through our twelve-part econometrics assignment in the university library’s media center every week, I seemed to be the only one feeling gut-wrenching envy of the graphic design students who were also there working on assignments that filled me with awe.. Don’t get me wrong, the stats class was great, but if I had listened to these feelings earlier I could have gotten to the path I’m on a little sooner.

Ugh. I didn’t understand the transformation or calculations that were made upstream so when I got questioned about the data, I couldn’t answer the questions. Couple that with not having confidence in myself and it equaled disaster for me. My reputation with agency leaders took a hit.

Building complex and impressive data visualization products that are not useful to real-world users.

Starting a company on my own. I believe I would have been much more successful in the startup world having co-founders with complementing skills. You can’t do everything yourself, its always better to form a great team!

1) Pursue what you’re interested in and you’re good at; 2) Risks will be rewarded

Have confidence in yourself—you aren’t always the issue.

Learn more design principles especially UX and information design.

Don’t stress so much about finding that ‘one thing’ you will be passionate about enough to make it your career for life. Just focus on pursuing what you enjoy in the present and learning what you can from whomever you can. Either you’ll find that ‘one thing’ eventually or you’ll start to see a pattern and can figure out what you love from that. You can enjoy the ride even if you don’t know the destination.

One piece of advice I would give to my early career self is to take literally every situation as an opportunity to learn and advance. Especially when things don’t go quite as planned, or, there is some downtime between projects, challenge yourself to learn from the experience. Also, it’s important to volunteer for different projects and activities, the more involved you get, the more you will get out of the work experience!

Lifeguard

Bagging groceries when I was 15

I was in customer service at a bank.

Commercial warehouse construction and maintenance

I am the son of two graphic designers so my first paying job was designing a typeface for a software company called Splash Media (later became Flash and now Adobe Animate). I was 10 years old at the time.

My first job was in a group called Development/Experimental engineering for a small turbine engine company. More specifically I was a helicopter engine test engineer where the goal was to run certification tests, and, sometimes make helicopter engines do things they probably shouldn’t be doing! I learned a lot about how to solve previously unsolved problems and push the limits all while making forward progress towards a common goal

You are legally required to get a lunch break

I remember going out to my first bank as an examiner and I took a briefcase because I wanted to look super professional. No one else had a briefcase and looked at me like I was a weirdo. I just looked like I was playing an adult. After that, I put the briefcase away for good!

I was once asked to explain “simple computer science problem that you dealt with in college” and instead had to explain that I never took a computer science class in college.