From understanding the world around us and informing decision-making to driving innovation, data plays a critical role in our daily lives. However, inspecting and comprehending data often entails complex statistical techniques, software, and programming languages that can be difficult for people without specialized knowledge or training to decipher. Data visualizations have recently emerged as a powerful tool for democratizing data by presenting information in a more intuitive and accessible way. In this talk, I will discuss three synergetic research thrusts aimed at empowering individuals to create, evaluate, and understand data visualizations. The first thrust will introduce novel approaches to crafting data visualizations in various formats, including infographics, comics, and articles. The second thrust will present methods for evaluating the effectiveness of data visualizations based on factors such as graphical perception, memorability, and attention. The final thrust will f ocus on ongoing investigations into enabling visually impaired individuals to understand data visualizations through non-visual means. The talk will conclude with a discussion of future directions, with a particular focus on the potential of recent advancements in artificial intelligence to further democratize data.

Nam Wook Kim is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Boston College where he leads the Data Within Reach Group (dwr.bc.edu). His research vision is to make data more accessible and bring it within reach of broader audiences from diverse backgrounds. He tackles this challenge by informing the world about the best data visualization practices and investigating novel approaches to empower people to interact with data beyond conventional expert analytic systems. His work has been recognized with awards from ACM CHI, ACM UIST, and the Kantar Information is Beautiful Awards. He has received research grants from the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Schiller Institute, and has served as an NSF panelist and program committee member in premier conferences such as ACM CHI and IEEE VIS. Prior to joining Boston College, he received a Ph.D. from Harvard University with support from Sibel Scholars and the Kwanjeong Educational Foundation.