There is beauty in truth and truth in beauty, noted John Keats in his poem “Ode on a Grecian Urn.” In Assistant Professor of Information Systems and Analytics Geri Louise Dimas’s graduate level “Data Visualization and Communication” course, held in Bryant University’s new Data Visualization Lab, students are learning this timeless truism anew — and are updating it for the 21st century.
Like an Old Master painter with a Ph.D. in Data Science, Dimas walks her students through both the art and science of data visualization — the craft of making complex information sets clear, understandable, and compelling — and how the two intersect. In addition to familiarizing themselves with professional data visualization tools, including industry standards Power BI, Tableau, and Python, they also learn about storytelling, design, human perception, and critical thinking.
The studio for this lesson, the Data Visualization Lab, part of Bryant’s new Business Entrepreneurship Leadership Center (BELC), is equipped with the finest of palettes, as the students gain hands-on experience with the technology, tools, and applications used by data science and analytics experts. The space’s advanced equipment, including VR headsets and GPU-based machines, ensures that they don’t just learn their lessons but have opportunities to explore.
“If you’re a data nerd like me, you're going to love this place,” notes Dimas with a grin.
Creation, chemistry, and careers
For today’s lesson, Dimas asks the class to use what they’ve learned to analyze a wide swath of data — ranging from attendance numbers to performance metrics — for several NFL teams and use it to tell a story. As the groups start their task, she floats throughout the room, offering encouragement and help with some of the finer points of the work. But she also motivates them to work through the process on their own.
Time and again, though they may originally seem lost, the groups find their way to the right answers with a little guidance. “See?” She smiles as one team makes a cognitive leap. “If I had just told you what the answer was, you wouldn’t have learned anything.”
Sometimes she’s even pleasantly surprised. “I didn’t think of that, but I like what you did with it,” Dimas notes approvingly during one stop.
Several members of one group know each other from Bryant’s Division I soccer team. They’ve dubbed themselves, “Team Chemistry,” as they’re attempting to apply the teamwork they’ve honed on the soccer field to their coursework. Working together at one of the lab’s “pods” with a giant monitor, they cheer each other on when everything clicks and, just as importantly, offer support when something doesn’t. That’s exactly the right attitude, Dimas notes.
“I’m learning something new every day that I can apply to the team.”
“In the Data Visualization Lab, we encourage students to collaborate with one another to gain insights,” she explains. “We have students that take courses across MBA programs, health informatics, data science, and business analytics — when they work together and explore, they can see how data visualization can have an impact on so many aspects of business and life.”
Santiago De Vicente Cebrian ’26MSDS, a member of Team Chemistry, is the student manager and data analyst for the soccer team. It’s his job to analyze the players, and their opponents, and find a winning edge. The data visualization techniques he’s learning, he says, won’t just help him understand the numbers; they’ll help him to share them. “I’m learning something new every day that I can apply to the team,” De Vicente Cebrian says.
Jose Alves Faria ’25MSHI, a midfielder and Cebrian’s partner in both sport and in classwork, is interested in a career in healthcare informatics. He’s excited about the class, and about working in the lab because of all the possibilities it opens for him —wherever his career takes him.
“No matter how technically skilled you are in terms of understanding data, you have to be able to story tell with it, especially if you’re presenting to an audience that’s not necessarily that technical,” he reflects.
The new lab, Faria says, is a fantastic place to practice for the future. “It's super innovative and it's definitely equipped with all the tools that we need to make great visualizations,” he states.
It’s like the BELC as a whole, Faria notes: a major leap forward and one that will contribute significantly to Bryant students’ studies.
The leaders, and citizens, the world needs
Data Visualization is fast becoming a “must have” skill in an ever-increasingly data-driven age, explains Dimas. “Through educating students with strong data visualization skills, they're going to be able to enter the market and be able to bring insights and new perspectives to the industries that they're working in,” she says. “We’re preparing our students to be the business leaders the world needs.”
But the need for data analysis goes beyond business. As co-director and fellow at the Stopping Trafficking and Modern-Day Exploitation Project (STAMP) Research Lab at the Institute for the Quantitative Study of Inclusion, Diversity, and Equity (QSIDE), Dimas uses data to better understand and improve processes that involve vulnerable populations such as those experiencing homelessness, human trafficking, and forced migration — requiring her to share it with a wide range of individuals and organizations.
“Data doesn't lie. People do. Sometimes unintentionally and sometimes not.”
“You can’t have a meaningful impact in the real world using data if you don’t understand it and you can’t effectively communicate it,” she notes.
And the impact of what they learn extends beyond their future profession. “One of the strongest skills our students develop is their ability to not just accept data as is, but to critically assess it,” says Dimas. “So, whether it be in the news or in an article they read, they can determine, ‘Does this data represent what I think it represents?’ Through understanding how to create data visualizations and what it means to communicate it, they can also dissect information that's being provided to them, making them more well-rounded citizens.
“Data doesn't lie. People do,” she states. “Sometimes unintentionally and sometimes not.”
But they can also find, and create, truth and beauty. As the class winds down, Team Chemistry hits on an analytical and storytelling solution that makes sense — and art — of a seeming jumble of statistics. There is excitement and anticipation as they call Dimas over.
“¿Cómo está?” (How’s this?),” one of the members of the soccer team asks hopefully, slipping into Spanish in his excitement.
“Bien” (Good),” Dimas confirms with a wide smile.
