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CURRENT POSITIONS
Doctoral Student (Ph.D.), Computer Science | Fall 2021 – Present
Data Visualization Lab @ Northeastern University, Boston, MA
Research Fellow: Civic visualization of urban intelligence | Fall 2023
The Edgelands Institute
CURRENT & UPCOMING EVENTS
“Data Visualization for Systems Genetics” | 14 November 2023
Boston Computational Biology & Bioinformatics Meetup
ABOUT ME
RIGHT NOW
I’m presently a Computer Science PhD student in the Data Visualization Lab at Northeastern University’s Khoury College, under the advisement of Dr. Michelle Borkin. I just finished all my course requirements for candidacy and a MS in Computer Science! This summer, I worked on exploratory analysis tools for systems genetics research with The Jackson Laboratory (“JAX”). This fall, I’m pivoting towards situated visualization for embedded systems for liquid chromatography and mass spectrometry with Agilent Technologies. My research interest, broadly, is visualization for exploratory analysis of high-dimensional data (yes, I would love to talk with you about non-linear projection methods over coffee). Book a meeting with me here!
I usually work in Python, D3/JS, and full stack MERN web development. My visualization library of choice is Plotly. I am excited about Vega / Altair. I have mixed emotions about d3 after living through the harrowing backwards compatibility incongruencies of v4 / v5 – trying to ease my code trauma so I can really explore the new d3 + Svelte pairing. Generally, I think visualization principles should be taught in a language-agnostic way, with a focus on forming a strong mental model for encodings. This summer I’ve been working with Google Cloud Platform (GCP) for scientific computing, and tools like BigQuery, Docker, OAuth, and BitBucket CI/CD pipelines. I’ve built Flask APIs for production, and modular multi-paged React dashboards for bespoke visualizations. I’m familiar with High Performance Computing (HPC) protocols including Slurm / job queues and parallelizing my code. Sometimes I also dabble in Java and C++ for art projects, or write R code to help out folks who really love statistics.
Beginning in 2020, I really enjoyed experimenting with training my own generative adversarial networks (GANs) as an art medium using Python (PyTorch, TensorFlow) on Google Colab GPUs, which I spoke about at NVIDIA GTC as a featured speaker and later as a panelist. However, for now, I’m hunkering down a bit to learn Blender — I’m particularly intrigued by Geometry Nodes and custom Python scripting with shaders.
I’ve been a speaker at NVIDIA GTC, SXSW 2022 & 2023, TEDx, AIGA, ODSC, IEEE VIS, and AAAI. I’ve organized workshops at WiDS Stanford, and IEEE VIS 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023. I have published work in Science Advances, PLoS, EPJ Data Science, JMIR, JMM and more.
EDUCATION
I’ve completed all the coursework for my MS in Computer Science (Northeastern’s “MS along the way” for PhD students), and I’m in the 3rd year of my PhD in Computer Science, with a focus in Data Visualization. I hold a MFA in Emergent Media, and a BFA in Graphic Design and Digital Media. My MFA work included curation of data-driven art exhibits; building computer-aided interactive, illuminated, and hydroponic sculptural works; and writing about the evolving relationship between art and science.
IRL
In my personal time, I build art robots, interactive mixed-media installations, aquaponic sculptures, and GAN art. I love rock climbing, hiking, Minecraft, Civilization VI, City Skylines, and tinkering with MIDI music. I’m looking for a gallery to represent my artwork, so please reach out if you are a curator, especially working in new media. I’m also co-organizing with my fellow graduate workers as GENU-UAW to unionize our workplace Northeastern, so we can collectively bargain for improvements to support our research. The NLRB just approved our petition for election for September! Learn more here: We want to vote yes!
You can find me on Mastodon at janeadams@vis.social
EDUCATION
Doctoral Student (Ph.D.), Computer Science | Fall 2021 – Present
Data Visualization Lab @ Northeastern University, Boston, MA
Master of Science (M.S), Computer Science | Fall 2021 – Spring 2023
Khoury College of Computer Sciences, Northeastern University, Boston, MA
Master of Fine Arts (M.F.A), Emergent Media | May 2018
Champlain College, Burlington Vermont
Bachelor of Fine Arts (B.F.A), Graphic Design & Digital Media | December 2015
Champlain College, Burlington Vermont
PROFESSIONAL MEMBERSHIPS
U.S. Research Software Engineer Association (US-RSE)
American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)
Visualization and Graphics Technical Community (VGTC)
Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)
The Recurse Center (Summer Mini Batch ’21)
EMPLOYMENT
* denotes teaching experience
PhD Intern (Summer 2023)
The Jackson Laboratory (JAX), Bar Harbor, ME / Remote
NSF CAREER Design Consultant | May – July 2023
Khoury College of Computer Sciences @ Northeastern University, Boston MA
Graduate Researcher | September 2021 – Present
Northeastern University: Khoury College of Computer Sciences, Boston, Massachusetts
Visiting Student | June 2022 – May 2023
The Jackson Laboratory, Bar Harbor, Maine / Remote
* Project Lead: Creativity + AI Research and Development Team | July – August 2022
Champlain College Emergent Media Center, Burlington, Vermont / Remote
* Doctoral Fellow: Immersive Analytics and Exploratory Data Visualization | May – August 2022
Champlain College Emergent Media Center, Burlington, Vermont / Remote
Consultant: Data Visualization Software Engineering | July 2021 – June 2022
The University of Vermont Complex Systems Center, operating out of Cambridge, Massachusetts
* Data Visualization Artist-in-Residence / Research Analyst | March 2018 – June 2021
The University of Vermont Complex Systems Center, Burlington, Vermont
* Graduate Curatorial Fellow | September 2017 – March 2018
Champlain College Art Gallery, Burlington, Vermont
* Project Management Graduate Fellow | January – August 2017
Champlain College Emergent Media Center Communications Team, Burlington, Vermont
* Teaching Assistant | July – August 2016, January – May 2017
Champlain College, Burlington, Vermont
Front End Development Intern | August 2016 – January 2017
Vermont Businesses for Social Responsibility, Burlington, Vermont
Media Design Intern | January – July 2016
Dealer.com, Burlington, Vermont
Graphic Designer | May 2014 – June 2015
Brandthropology Inc., Burlington, Vermont
Graphic Designer and Front-End Developer | September 2012 – June 2015
Oleet & Co. Investment Bank, Burlington, Vermont
RESEARCH
“Allotaxonometry and rank-turbulence divergence: A universal instrument for comparing complex systems”. Peter Sheridan Dodds, Joshua R Minot, Michael V Arnold, Thayer Alshaabi, Jane Lydia Adams, David Rushing Dewhurst, Tyler J Gray, Morgan R Frank, Andrew J Reagan, Christopher M. Danforth. EPJ Data Science, 19 September 2023.
“DevOps for DataVis: A Survey and Provocation for Teaching Deployment of Data Visualizations.” IEEE VIS 2023 alt.VIS workshop, Melbourne, AUS. Jane L. Adams.
“Augmented Reality as a Visualization Technique for Scholarly Publications in Astronomy: An Empirical Evaluation”. IEEE VIS 2023 Short Papers, Melbourne, AUS. Jane Adams, Laura South, Arzu Çöltekin, Alyssa Goodman, and Michelle Borkin.
User Study: Evaluation of AR Technology for Astronomy Journal Publications. 241st Meeting of the American Astronomical Society (AAS), Seattle WA. Conducted user study with over 50 experts in astronomy to investigate the potential and pitfalls of using Augmented Reality for visualization of astrophysical data such as the interstellar medium, star formation, spectral analysis, and exoplanet search. Michelle Borkin and Jane Adams.
“Comparative Analysis Dashboard for Interpretability of Binary Function Similarity Evaluation Models”. Network graph representation of IDA-disassembled binaries across architectures for ACFG (attributed control flow graph) analysis in cybersecurity contexts. Jane L. Adams and Michael Davinroy. Work in Progress.
“On Creating Mixed Media Artificial Intelligence Art”. Jane Adams. Creative AI Across Modalities Workshop at AAAI 2023. Hybrid / Washington DC.
“Visual Utility Evaluation of Differentially Private Scatterplots”. Liudas Panavas, Tarik Crnovrsanin, Jane L. Adams, Ali Sarvghad, Melanie Tory, Cody Dunne. IEEE VIS 2022. osf.io/q7w42
“Ready Player Viz: Player-Created Strategic Visualizations for Video Games”. Jane L. Adams and Michael Davinroy, alt.VIS 2022.
“ArterialVis” – image processing, segmentation, 3D to 2D network abstraction of cerebrovasculature, and interactive visualization of planar graph embedding for detection of neurological anomalies. Jane L. Adams, Liudas Panavas, Michelle Borkin, Cody Dunne. GitHub
“Storywrangler: A massive exploratorium for sociolinguistic, cultural, socioeconomic, and political timelines using Twitter” Thayer Alshaabi, Jane L Adams, Michael V Arnold, Joshua R Minot, David R Dewhurst, Andrew J Reagan, Christopher M. Danforth, Peter Sheridan Dodds. Science Advances
“Sirius: A Mutual Information Tool for Exploratory Visualization of Mixed Data”. Jane Lydia Adams, Todd F. DeLuca, Christopher M. Danforth, Peter Sheridan Dodds, Yuhang Zheng, Boyoon Choi, Allison Min, Konstantinos Anastasakis, and Michael M. Bessey. arXiv:2106.05260
“Quantifying language changes surrounding mental health on Twitter”. Anne Marie Stupinski, Thayer Alshaabi, Michael V Arnold, Jane Lydia Adams, Joshua R Minot, Matthew Price, Peter Sheridan Dodds, Christopher M Danforth. arXiv:2106.01481
“The incel lexicon: Deciphering the emergent cryptolect of a global misogynistic community”. Kelly Gothard, David Rushing Dewhurst, Joshua R Minot, Jane Lydia Adams, Christopher M Danforth, Peter Sheridan Dodds. arXiv:2105.12006
“Homophily and Heterogeneity in the Cancerous Cell Line Network for Gene Therapy Improvements”. Jane Adams, Celestin Coquide, Diana Garcia and Rodrigo Migueles Ramirez. NetSci 2020 International School and Conference on Network Science.
“Long-term word frequency dynamics derived from Twitter are corrupted: A bespoke approach to detecting and removing pathologies in ensembles of time series”. Peter Sheridan Dodds, Joshua R. Minot, Michael V. Arnold, Thayer Alshaabi, Jane L. Adams, David R. Dewhurst, Andrew J. Reagan, Christopher M. Danforth. arXiv:2008.11305
“Computational timeline reconstruction of the stories surrounding Trump: Story turbulence, narrative control, and collective chronopathy.” Peter Sheridan Dodds, Joshua R Minot, Michael V Arnold, Thayer Alshaabi, Jane Lydia Adams, Andrew J Reagan, Christopher M Danforth. arxiv:2008.07301
“How the world’s collective attention is being paid to a pandemic: COVID-19 related 1-gram time series for 24 languages on Twitter” Thayer Alshaabi, JR Minot, MV Arnold, Jane Lydia Adams, David Rushing Dewhurst, Andrew J Reagan, Roby Muhamad, Christopher M Danforth, Peter Sheridan Dodds. arXiv:2003.12614
“A Network Approach to Cancer: Clustering Cell Lines by Gene Dependency Rank Differences” Jane Adams, Celestin Coquide, Diana Garcia, Rodrigo Migueles Ramirez. Extended abstract and poster presented at Northeast Regional Conference on Complex Systems (NERCCS) 2020.
“The growing echo chamber of social media: Measuring temporal and social contagion dynamics for over 150 languages on Twitter for 2009-2020” Thayer Alshaabi, David R Dewhurst, Joshua R Minot, Michael V Arnold, Jane L Adams, Christopher M Danforth, Peter Sheridan Dodds. arXiv:2003.03667
“Allotaxonometry and rank-turbulence divergence: A universal instrument for comparing complex systems” Peter Sheridan Dodds, Joshua R Minot, Michael V Arnold, Thayer Alshaabi, Jane Lydia Adams, David Rushing Dewhurst, Tyler J Gray, Morgan R Frank, Andrew J Reagan, Christopher M Danforth. arXiv:2002.09770
“Hurricanes and hashtags: Characterizing online collective attention for natural disasters” Michael V Arnold, David Rushing Dewhurst, Thayer Alshaabi, Joshua R Minot, Jane L Adams, Christopher M Danforth, Peter Sheridan Dodds. arXiv:2003.14291
“Fame and Ultrafame: Measuring and comparing daily levels of ‘being talked about’ for United States’ presidents, their rivals, God, countries, and K-pop”, Peter Sheridan Dodds, Joshua R Minot, Michael V Arnold, Thayer Alshaabi, Jane Lydia Adams, David Rushing Dewhurst, Andrew J Reagan, Christopher M Danforth. arXiv:1910.00149
VOLUNTEER WORK
VISxAI Workshop Program Committee
and alt.VIS Workshop Steering Committee | 2023
IEEE VIS Conference 2023, Melbourne, Australia
HCxAI Workshop Program Committee | 2023
ACM CHI Conference 2023, Hamburg, Germany
Social Media Co-Organizer | 2023
Northeastern University Graduate Workers Union (GENU-UAW), Boston Massachusetts
alt.VIS Workshop Organizing Committee & Session Chair | 2021 & 2022
IEEE VIS Conference 2021 & 2022
Student Volunteer: Visualization PhD Summer School | Summer 2022
Northeastern University, Boston Massachusetts
Graduate Mentor: Researching the relationship between AI developers and artists | Summer 2022
Smith College, Amherst Massachusetts
Student Volunteer | April 30th – May 6th 2022
ACM CHI 2022, New Orleans Louisiana
Fail Fest Workshop – Organizing Committee & Session Chair | October 2020
IEEE VIS Conference 2020, Virtual
Lead Community Organizer | 2015 – 2021
Vermont Womxn in Machine Learning and Data Science, Burlington, Vermont
Project Lead | January – May 2017
Stride: The Wright Foundation for Female Athletes
PUBLIC SPEAKING
* denotes teaching experience
alt.VIS Workshop Session Chair / Steering Committee | October 2023
IEEE VIS Conference, Melbourne, Australia
Presenting First Author: “AR for Scholarly Publication of 3D Visualizations in Astronomy” | October 2023
IEEE VIS Conference, Melbourne, Australia
Presenting First Author: “DevOps for DataVis: A Survey and Provocation for Teaching Deployment of Data Visualizations” | October 2023
IEEE VIS Conference, Melbourne, Australia
Exhibiting Artist: “Latent Prism” Sculpture | October 2023
VISAP, the Arts Program at IEEE VIS 2023, Melbourne, Australia
Exhibiting Co-Artist: “Eco-Mending” | October 2023
VISAP, the Arts Program at IEEE VIS 2023, Melbourne, Australia
“Gameification of Agent-Based Modeling for Urban Planning” | October 6th, 2023
The Edgelands Institute, Online (Private)
“Creating Fabric Prints with A.I.” | September 30th, 2023
Cambridge Science Festival, The Foundry in Cambridge MA
“Systemic Challenges of Visualization Software Engineering in Genetics Research” | September 26th, 2023
Northeastern University Software Day, Boston MA
* Guest Speaker: Creative A.I. Technologies | July 27th, 2023
Sandbox Team @ Champlain College Emergent Media Center, Burlington VT
Visualizing Complex Systems Attendee & Poster Presenter | July 16-20th, 2023
Gordon Research Conference (GRC), Bates College, Lewiston, ME
Lightning Talk: Interactive Visualizations for Systems Genetics | June 6th, 2023
Computational Community Retreat @ The Jackson Laboratory, Remote
Aerial View: Reflections on Processing Images, from Code to Artifact | Saturday April 15th, 2023
Artist Talk, Creativity and AI Symposium at Hula, Burlington VT
Beyond Text-to-Image: How can I make my own A.I. art with custom data? | Saturday April 15th, 2023
Workshop, Creativity and AI Symposium at Hula, Burlington VT
Hackathon: Modular Visualization Components for Systems Biology | March 30-31st, 2023
glue-con/bio+, The Flatiron Institute Center for Computational Biology, New York NY
PhD Panel Discussion: Human Centered Computing Group | 3-4pm, March 17th, 2023
Northeastern University Khoury College of Computer Sciences, Boston MA
SXSW Panelist: Data Art: Processes and Perspectives | March 11th, 2023
South by Southwest (SXSW) Austin Convention Center, Austin TX
Interactive Visualization of Systems Genetics | March 10th, 2023
The Jackson Laboratory (JAX) Genetics Interest Group (GIG), Bar Harbor ME
Visualization of Conditional Inference Trees for Computational Biology | February 14th, 2023
University of Vermont Complex Systems Center, Burlington VT
Lightning Talk: How to Make Six Figures an Hour | December 15th, 2022
NormConf: The Normcore Tech Conference – Slides here
“Ready Player Viz: Player-Created Visualizations for Video Games” | October 16th, 2022
alt.VIS Workshop at IEEE VIS 2022, Oklahoma City, OK / Virtual
Panelist: Enabling Unconventional Applications using AI | September 20th, 2022
NVIDIA Global Technology Conference (GTC), San Jose CA / Virtual
Panelist: Collaborative Development in Immersive XR | June 20th, 2022
Governor’s Institute of Vermont (GIV), Champlain College, Burlington VT
SXSW Panelist: How Open AI Models Enable Artists to Innovate | March 16, 2022
South by Southwest (SXSW) Austin Convention Center, Austin TX
Featured Speaker: Leveraging Machine Learning in Artistic Workflows | March 23rd, 2022
NVIDIA Global Technology Conference (GTC), San Jose CA / Virtual – 235 Session Views
Guest Lecturer | November 19th, 2021
Data Visualization Lisboa, Virtual / Lisbon, Portugal
Artist Talk and Film Screening: Voyager EP | June 2021
Burlington City Arts presents ‘Flicks in the Park’, Burlington, Vermont
Storywrangler: A journey in visualizing 100 billion tweets in 100 languages,
and what it means for future research Featured Speaker | May 2021
Data Stories @ CEU (Central European University), Virtual / Vienna, Austria
FailFest Workshop Organizer & Moderator | October 2020
IEEE VIS 2020, Virtual / Salt Lake City, UT
* Data Visualization for Network Scientists Workshop Instructor | April 2020
Northeast Regional Conference on Complex Systems (NERCCS) Pre-Conference School, Virtual / NY
* CS-395 Advanced Special Topics: Data Lab Guest Lecturer (Data Visualization) | March 2020
University of Vermont, Burlington, Vermont
* DAT-430: Data Visualization Guest Lecturer | December 2019
Champlain College, Burlington, Vermont
* Visualizing Complexity: Network Graphs of High-Dimensional Data Instructor | Oct. 2019
Open Data Science Conference, San Francisco, California
Data Art: Seeing the Future of Data Science Speaker | April 2019
Open Data Science Conference, Boston, Massachusetts
* Data Visualization Workshop Facilitator | March 2019
Women in Data Science Conference, Stanford University, Palo Alto, California
What’s a Data Artist? Featured Speaker | February 2019
AIGA Vermont: WTF is Design Anyway?, Burlington, Vermont
Visualizing Complexity Featured Speaker | November 2018
The Emergent Landscape Speaker Series, Champlain College, Burlington, Vermont
Visual Storytelling Featured Speaker | November 2018
Gund Institute Tea, University of Vermont, Burlington, Vermont
Complexity, Mutualism, and Ecopolitics Panelist | October 2018
Feverish World Symposium, University of Vermont, Burlington, Vermont
TEDx Springfield Featured Speaker | October 2018
MassMutual, Springfield, Massachusetts
2018 GeoDataSci Conference Featured Speaker | June 2018
Generator Maker Space, Burlington, Vermont
The Emergent Mindset Featured Speaker | November 2016
Shelburne Museum, PechaKucha Night Vol. 22, Shelburne, Vermont
ART EXHIBITIONS
⇞ indicates contribution to securing grant funding
Exhibiting Artist: “When All Dreams Come True“ Group Show | May – June 2023
Provocation Ideas Festival, Toronto, ON (Canada)
Featured Artist: Plausible Landscapes | May 3rd – June 6th, 2023
CultureHouse, East Somerville, MA
Exhibiting Artist: “When All Dreams Come True“ Group Show | May – June 2023
Provocation Ideas Festival, Toronto, ON (Canada)
⇞ Co-Created: The Artist in the Age of Intelligent Machines Exhibiting Artist | Feb. 10th – May 27th, 2023
Burlington City Arts Gallery, Burlington, VT
Nodradek: Solo Show Featured Artist | November 2021 – March 2022
Cambridge Art Association, Darwin’s Ltd., Cambridge MA
Voyager EP Exhibiting Artist | July 2021
ALIFE: Conference on Artificial Life, Virtual / Prague, Czech Republic
Artist Talk and Film Screening: Voyager EP | June 2021
Burlington City Arts presents ‘Flicks in the Park’, Burlington, Vermont
Art Forms, An Exhibition Exhibiting Artist | May – July 2021
Mad River Valley Arts, Stowe, Vermont
⇞ Aquaponic Diorama Exhibiting Artist | February – June 2020
“Apocalypse Diet” Group Show at Burlington City Arts (BCA) Gallery, Burlington, Vermont
⇞ The Illuminated Forest Exhibiting Artist | Sept. 2018, Sept. 2019
Champlain Maker Faire at Shelburne Farms, Shelburne, Vermont
⇞ The Illuminated Waterfront Project Lead and Exhibiting Artist | 2018/19
Highlight New Years’ Eve Festival, ECHO Aquarium, Burlington, Vermont
Emerging Tech Showcase Exhibitor | October 2018
Vermont Tech Jam, Essex Junction, Vermont
Universalities of Inquiry Exhibiting Artist | February – March 2018
Champlain College Art Gallery, Burlington, Vermont
Quality of Life Guest Curator | February – March 2018
Champlain College Art Gallery, Burlington, Vermont
But What About…? Interactive Data Installation Project Lead | July – Aug. 2017
Champlain College Emergent Media Center, Burlington Vermont
Interactive Terrarium Exhibiting Artist | December 2016
Champlain College Art Gallery, Burlington, Vermont
MENTORSHIP
I’ve had the great privilege of mentoring a number of undergraduate students over the years:
- Juna Kim, Northeastern University — Cerebrovasculature Segmentation and Morphology
- Addie Addie, Smith College — Surveying A.I. Artists and Developers
- Evan Koppers, Lucia Hughes, Harper Bennett, and Leah Peterson — Data Visualization in XR
- Henry Foley, Robert Christianson, and Nathan Boisvert — Art and A.I. for Immersive Exhibits
GRANTS & SCHOLARSHIPS
Champlain College
Brouillette Scholarship: $5,600
Excellence Scholarship: $60,000
Achievement Scholarship: $14,400
Northeastern University
PhD Network Travel Funds: $500
2-year Khoury College of Computer Sciences Fellowship
Agilent Technologies Research Grant (1-year, PhD stipend)
Other
Highlight BTV 2019 Illumination Collective arts grant: $10,000
2023 Gordon Research Conference on Visualization in Science & Education: $950