The Frost Institute for Data Science and Computing (then the Center for Computational Science), the School of Communication and the College of Arts and Sciences held the second VizUM Annual Symposium on Thursday, November 12th, 2015, from 4:00-7:00 PM. The theme was “A Celebration of Infographics and Data Visualization”. The invited speakers Fernanda Viegas, Martin Wattendberg, and Lynn Cherny were pioneers in the field of Visualization. Their vision drove the products and styles we see around us daily, and they continue to forge new ground in this domain.

Pictured, left to right, speakers Fernanda Viegas, PhD and Martin Wattenberg, PhD are comets of collective intelligence and visualization technology.  Both started at IBM, and moved to lead the data visualization team at Google. In their spare time, they specialize in producing artistic interpretations of emotionally charged data, and both are known as artists as well as data visualization gurus. Next, speaker Lynn Cherny, PhD, MPhil, co-founder of OpenVis , online as @arnicas and ghostweather.com, is passionate about interactive information visualization, text mining and online communities.  Event founder and host Albert Cairo and Jonathan Schwabish (Senior Research Associate at the Urban Institute’s Income and Benefits Policy Center.) pose with the speakers.

Attendees enjoyed presentations and an interactive discussion with all three guests. A reception immediately followed. The VizUM 2015 Symposium was held at the University of Miami Newman Alumni Center, 6200 San Amaro Drive, Coral Gables, FL 33146 (click for map)