Keynote Talk

Tuesday, October 27, 2015
8:30 AM – 9:30 AM
Grand Ballroom

Professor Donna J. Cox, MFA, PhD
Donna J. Cox is the first named Michael Aiken Endowed Chair at the University of Illinois, where she directs the Advanced Visualization Laboratory, the eDream Institute, and the Culture and Society theme at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications.

An Evolving Visual Language: Connecting General Audiences to Science through Data Visualization

Visualization of all types of data is a highly effective tool used by researchers to gain insight into natural phenomena and to communicate their findings. It is also an increasingly popular means of presenting large scientific datasets to the general public in informal educational settings such as museums and planetaria. Visualization has appeared in many forms and in many cultures throughout digital history and contributes to the evolving visual language of science.

Dr. Donna Cox and the Advanced Visualization Laboratory team at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, University of Illinois, collaborate with science teams, writers, producers, educators, and media distribution professionals on content designed to engage a wide range of audiences. In the past 8 years alone, her collaborative educational and outreach projects have produced science narratives featuring data visualizations that have been viewed by more than 45 million people worldwide.

Cox leads an NSF-funded project to create scientific visualizations and then test audiences’ understanding of the phenomenon that is being presented. Large-scale computational data present unique visualization challenges for producers of high-resolution, production-quality 3D IMAX movies; feature films; and museum fulldomes. In this keynote, Cox will provide a visual feast of major projects, including new digital fulldome museum shows and award-winning IMAX films.

Speaker Bio:
Professor Donna J. Cox, MFA, PhD, is the first named Michael Aiken Endowed Chair at the University of Illinois, where she directs the Advanced Visualization Laboratory, the eDream Institute, and the Culture and Society theme at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications.

Cox has been a leader in the field of scientific visualization for over 30 years. She coined the term ‘renaissance teams’ to describe interdisciplinary groups of experts who address difficult challenges in large-scale data scientific visualization. Cox and her collaborators have thrilled millions around the world with their stunning cinematic presentations of science for IMAX movies, feature films, PBS HD television, and large-screen digital museum shows. The Museum of Science and Industry selected Cox as one of 40 “Modern-Day Leonardos” featured in its Leonardo da Vinci: Man, Inventor, Genius exhibit. Cox presented the first capstone at IEEE VIS in 1990.