In March 2023, I was diagnosed with Chiari Malformation. While some people express themselves through writing or painting, I express myself through data visualization. Creating this viz helped me process my medial journey. My goal was to create awareness for this rare brain condition, education others on the side effects and treatment options, and to let anyone who is going through this know that they are not alone. While text heavy, I wanted to create a minimalist look with white space and clean images that help describe the condition. I aligned my color palette with the official Chiari awareness color, purple. I used Figma to design the background and Tableau for all of the charts and visuals, including the curvy timeline. The insights include overall statistics and prevalence of the condition, common side effects, treatment options and outcomes, and recovery statistics. Throughout the data and facts, I weave in my own personal experience. Truly, every person's story with Chiari is different and I try to highlight that as well. The timeline at the bottom is where I logged my journey from diagnosis to brain surgery to recovery, if readers want to dive into specifics. I also wanted to create a call to action and connection at the end with links to resources and ways to get involved.

The selected theme centers around bees, chosen primarily due to the alarming decline in their population. This project seeks to emphasize the importance and repercussions of neglecting their well-being.

This visualization highlights women in rock climbing, and how this is one of the more equitable sports currently. I wanted to highlight that many sports are created by men and for men, so men consistently out-perform women. However, rock climbing plays to many of women's strengths, meaning this sport can be a great way to not only build women's strength but also their confidence.   The design choices of this viz really play into the idea of rock climbing and ascending. Many of the charts evoke a sense of climbing, such as the intro line chart and the arc chart. Rock climbing holds have been used to give people more information who may not be familiar with the sport. And a unit chart was used to really give a sense of how men and women perform in various sports.   This viz highlights how women are performing close to, if not out performing, men in many aspects of climbing. However, because the sport is still very male dominated, there are still barriers women need to overcome.

I designed this poster because I wanted to celebrate some world success! So I kept it simple and intuitive to focus on growth rather than specific numbers. I've made it to be printed and to decorate offices and homes, just as a hopeful reminder that good news is there if you're willing to find it.

As an avid music listener, I look forward to my end of year stats. But I wanted to go further and see how my taste in music has evolved over the last 7 years of listening. Exporting my data from Spotify, I analyzed the attributes using beeswarm plots and averages for the year. It was interesting to see my tastes go from more indie to more pop, the spike in instrumental listening in 2020, and debate whether or not Spotify can tell if a song is happy or not.   I chose to use the story feature of tableau to guide users through a slideshow, culminating in top ten lists for the last 7 years. I opted for a dark background to mimic the feel of the web music application, with bright colors defining the year.   While I had some gut assumptions about my own listening habits going in, it was fun to see what the data did (or didn't) show. I hope it inspires others to visualize their own hobbies as well.

With the demographic decline in U.S. domestic higher education enrollment, many colleges and universities must strategically focus on international students. My data visualization, "America's International Students Trends and Impacts," explores the dynamic landscape of international student enrollment in the United States. It also holds a special significance for me as it resonates with a personal journey – I came to America as an international student. This visualization is a heartfelt dedication to the diverse community of international students who embark on educational journeys in the United States. Leveraging Tableau, I employed a combination of bar charts, line graphs, area charts, stream graphs, Trellis charts, dumbell charts, and interactive maps to convey a comprehensive overview of trends and their potential implications. The design choices were deliberate – I opted for a clean and intuitive story-like interface to ensure accessibility and engagement. The timeline feature allows users to observe shifts in metric patterns over time, while interactive maps provide a spatial context, enhancing the understanding of regional variations. Color coding has been kept to minimal colors to highlight vital trends and to keep the story consistent. The visualization unveils critical insights into the evolution of international student enrollment, shedding light on influential factors and potential challenges. Observing patterns, one can discern the impact of geopolitical events, economic factors, and educational policies on enrollment trends. I hope this visualization sparks valuable discussions and aids policymakers, educators, and stakeholders make informed decisions regarding international education in the United States.

My entry, an interactive scrollytelling story tells the story of “An Unlikely Hero: Periphyton’s Role in Everglades Restoration”. Periphyton is an amalgam of different components: algae, diatoms, bacteria and more that serve as the foundation of the food web in the Everglades system. It serves a role in photosynthesis and water clarity. It is also used as the measure for determining how polluted the water is. The visualizations demonstrate that by illuminating the foundational datasets of Dr Evelyn Gaiser at FIU. She is the lead scientist and investigator of periphyton abundance in the Everglades and its reactivity to phosphorus, a major contributor to water pollution in South Florida. I cleaned and analyzed the data using RStudio. After deciding visual approach I generated base charts and graphs in both R and RawGraphs 2.0 and edited and re-drew visualizations in Adobe Illustrator. Diagrams and illustrations were hand drawn. I wanted a very simple and graphic approach so as to make some very complex scientific concepts readily understandable with hopes of motivating the lay person to action. The visualizations demonstrate that phosphorus levels are very high near agricultural and urban areas and that when phosphorus levels are high periphyton breaks apart, which in turn impacts South Florida’s ecosystem and water clarity. While these datasets cover only 2005-2014, the scientists involved with this research relayed that there hasn’t been significant improvement. Augmenting my findings with current reports demonstrates phosphorus is still increasing in the Everglades.

My entry combines my own personal experience with ADHD (and that of my younger brother), as well as ADHD in women in general. My theme revolves around the differences in women and men, and why we need to start accounting for these differences in how we diagnose and recognize the condition. I struggled through different phases of becoming aware of my ADHD, and eventually embracing it. Due to the way I (and other females) tend to present symptoms, ADHD can go easily undetected. Undiagnosed ADHD can lead to devastating outcomes, such as depression and low self-esteem. My design choices mimic that of a story, detailing different phases of this process, contrasting color for women versus men, and tying in personal experience supplemented with ideas rooted in research to support my story. I chose visuals such as time series', comet charts, and radar charts to provide context, and emphasize the difference in ADHD by gender (and age groups within that gender) through the intentional use of color. I hope the insights gleaned from this viz inspire us to change the way we diagnose ADHD in women, and why it matters.

In recent years I fell in love with the Blue Zone studies and the learnings of living a healthy life full of vitality. This viz walks through the Power 9 while also exploring additional data points that further support this living well.