Visual Analytics Day at Bryant connects students and faculty with cutting-edge skills and community partners

Bryant's path-breaking curriculum at the intersection of business, the liberal arts, and STEM—and resources like the University's Data Visualization Lab—help students hone the 21st century skills they'll need to excel in emerging career opportunities.

Sep 06, 2022, by Staff Writer

SMITHFIELD, RI - Preparing for the future means staying on the cutting edge. Visual Analytics Day at Bryant, scheduled for September 14 , will help Bryant University students and faculty learn how to better analyze datasets—and make better data-driven decisions—through modern visualization techniques using Tableau, Power BI, Python, R, and AR/VR..

The day’s events, sponsored by Bryant's College of Business, Center for Health and Behavioral Sciences, Department of Information Systems and Analytics (ISA), Department of Mathematics and Economics, and Department of Marketing, will focus on familiarizing students who are new to analytics with the field, upskilling experienced students and faculty, and strengthening the connections between Bryant and the Rhode Island analytics community. It will also explore the use of interactive visualization and visual analytics across a range of disciplines such as marketing, fintech, and healthcare analytics.

Integrated education for the 21st Century
Proficiency in visual analytics requires skills beyond the traditional scientific and information visualization areas, including statistics, data science, cognitive science and human-computer interaction, and production—making it a perfect fit for Bryant’s interdisciplinary curriculum. The centerpiece of the University’s Vision 2030 strategic plan is education for 21st century skills and emerging career opportunities at the intersection of business, the liberal arts, and STEM.

Bryant's academic programs, including top-ranked courses of study in Data Science and Information Systems, prepare students to excel in a wide range of technical professions that are critical in today’s information age. Guided by faculty who are leading scholars and industry experts, students gain cutting-edge skills, knowledge, and experience—and prepare to become decision makers and solution drivers in a constantly evolving field. Resources like the University’s new Data Visualization Lab ensure they have the state-of-the-art tools necessary to practice what they’ve learned at the highest level.

Visual Analytics Day at Bryant programming
Visual Analytics Day at Bryant’s sessions will be split into two halves. The day’s first half, open to the entire Bryant community, will explore how visual analytics can reimagine data-driven experiences. Participants will learn how visualizations can help make the information generated by data analytics programs more accessible and manageable, and the role that can play in furthering the adoption of trusted, scalable data.

Bryant’s expert faculty will lead three hands-on sessions:

Think Outside the Boxplot: Visual Analytics for Beginners., led by Associate Professor of Marketing Kacy Kim, Ph.D., provides an introduction to methods for presenting data to an observer in a way that yields insight and understanding.
Interactive Visualization Zoo Using Python, led by Assistant Professor of Information Systems and Analytics Tinting Zhao, Ph.D., will take attendees on a brief tour through the “Interactive Visualization Zoo” via multiple powerful python and R visualization packages, showcasing techniques for visualizing and interacting with diverse data sources including real healthcare data sets for covid analysis and genetic data analysis for drug repurposing tasks.
Data Storytelling & AR/VR Presentation, led by Professor of Economics Ramesh Mohan, Ph.D., will explore the art of Data Storytelling and its ability to effectively communicate insights from a dataset using various Business Intelligence (BI) visualization tools.

In addition, Bryant alumnus Dustin Cabral ’09, Data Analytics Consultant at Cleartelligence, will deliver a presentation on "Strengthening Data Culture at Bryant." This spring, Cabral was a speaker at TEDxBryantU 2022, Bryant’s own TEDx event, where he discussed The Evolution of Data Visualization.

The second half of the day’s events, open to both the Bryant community and the Rhode Island visual analytics community, will allow Bryant’s students and faculty to network with the state’s data professionals—bringing together current and future leaders and decision-makers.

In addition to a Dashboard Showcase and a networking session and dinner, the day’s second half will include:

A presentation on "The Science of Visual Analysis" by Kim Hawko Vitiello, Principal Solution Engineer, Tableau at Salesforce
A hands-on workshop on Tableau Tips led by Andrew Schoepfer, Associate Athletic Director/Revenue Generation and Data Strategy at Providence College
A session on “Data + Community: Data for Good Project,” led by Tableau Freelance Trainer Bill Rebello

An RSVP is required for the event. To register, visit: https://tinyurl.com/BryantVisualAnalytics