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The Co-Laboratory for Data Impact focuses on narrative data strategies and is committed to advancing civic-oriented and impactful visual storytelling for issues of public urgency in the areas of diversity, transparency, and sustainability. The lab serves as a university hub for faculty, staff, and students looking to communicate visually with data in the public sphere and for external partners of various kinds seeking expertise in this domain. Through creative practice and research, the lab contributes to the fields of design and data journalism, exploring areas such as visual poetics, metaphors, and evidentiary aesthetics. We aim to expand the vocabulary of public data storytelling by using the wellspring of a broad range of approaches: journalistic, design-centric, and artistic. We aim at facilitating sense-making around digital information, while providing the tools for public audiences to understand the world in new impactful ways. We value quantitative rigor and data integrity while risking innovative, poetic and metaphoric data portrayals.

Featured Projects

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Building a Visual Metaphor Machine

CAMD

What if we could take a raw dataset and harness AI to generate a portrait of the data? The Visual Metaphor Machine project is an initiative that aims to redefine the boundaries of data exploration and visualization.

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"Scientists Model Immune Variation and Responses to Flu Vaccination" by NIAID is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Addressing Science-related Misinformation: Exploring Cross-Cultural Differences and NGO Responses

Communication Studies

The key focus of the research is the relationship between vaccine hesitancy and climate change denial because of misinformation, specifically on how it is perceived because of social media.

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"Scientists Model Immune Variation and Responses to Flu Vaccination" by NIAID is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
"raw data snapshot" by Paul L Dineen is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Software Tools to Support Climate Change Reporting: Addressing Gaps and Needs among Journalists

Journalism

This research project seeks to design software tools for journalists covering climate change in order to address gaps and needs. The study involves interviews with professional U.S. and international climate journalists.

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"raw data snapshot" by Paul L Dineen is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
"Twitter app icon on smartphone screen (perspective render)" by Yu. Samoilov is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Climate Journalism and Social Media: Analyzing Practices on Twitter

Journalism

Amid mass spread of climate misinformation and disinformation on social media platforms, climate journalists attempt to disseminate accurate climate change information via social media.

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"Twitter app icon on smartphone screen (perspective render)" by Yu. Samoilov is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
"TikTok" by Solen Feyissa is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

User Engagement with Climate Activism on TikTok

Journalism

In recent years, the social media platform TikTok has become a stage for activism, especially among young adults. However, research is relatively limited on the subject, especially content relating to climate activism.

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"TikTok" by Solen Feyissa is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

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