Benjamin Bach

Benjamin is a Lecturer in Design Informatics and Visualization at the University of Edinburgh. His research designs and investigates interactive information visualization interfaces to help people explore, communicate, and understand data across media such as screens, mixed reality, paper, and physicalizations.

Contact

Office: Informatics Forum (IF 4.30), 10 Crichton St, Edinburgh

Email: bbach@inf.ed.ac.uk

Twitter: @benjbach

Research Interest

Network Visualization
Visualization of spatio-temporal data
Data-driven storytelling
Visualization in Augmented and Virtual Reality (Immersive Analytics)
Non-digital visualization
Teaching and learning visualization

Short Bio

Before joining the University of Edinburgh in 2017, Benjamin worked as a postdoc at Harvard University (Visual Computing Group), Monash University, as well as the Microsoft-Research Inria Joint Centre. Benjamin was visiting researcher at the University of Washington and Microsoft Research in 2015. He obtained his PhD in 2014 from the Université Paris Sud where he worked at the Aviz Group at Inria. The PhD thesis entitled Connections, Changes, and Cubes: Unfolding Dynamic Networks for Visual Exploration got awarded an honorable mention as the Best Thesis by the IEEE Visualization Committee. In 2019, Benjamin got awarded the Eurographics Young Researcher Award (thanks to all my mentors and collaborators, this is your award!).

Publications

Publications Google Scholar

Awards

2019 Eurographics Young Researcher Award.
2018 BioVis Best Poster Award: Feature Centric Visual Exploration of Genomic Interaction Matrices
2014 VGTC Best Ph.D. Thesis 2014, Honorable Mention
2013 IEEE VIS Best Poster Award: Visualizing Dense Dynamic Networks with Matrix Cubes
2013 ACH CHI Best Paper Award: Weighted graph comparison techniques for brain connectivity analysis

PhD Students

Zezhong Wang (since 2018)
John Harper-Lee (since 2018), 2nd
Mashael Alkadi (since 2019), 1st
Tobias Kauer (since 2019), 1st
Ryan Bowler (since 2019), 1st
Lucy Heavens (since 2020), 2nd
Kun-Ting Chen (since 2020), 3rd
Sarah Schöttler (since 2021), 1st

Professional Activities

ACM ISS Workshop Chair (2020)
ACM CHI Paper Associate Chair (2018, 2019)
ACM CHI Late Braking Work Associate Chair (2017)
ACM CHI Work-in-Progress Program Committee (2015)
IEEE InfoVis Program Committee (2018)
IEEE VAST Program Committee (2018)
GraphDrawing Program Committee
TransImage Conference: Conference Co-chair 2018

Reviewing (selection)

ACM CHI: since 2013
IEEE InfoVis/Vast: since 2012
TVCG: since 2011
EuroVis: since 2012
Graph Drawing

Recent Invited Talks

(Not including conference presentations)

Jan 2021: Visualization Empowerment, Open Lab, Newcastle University.
December 2020: The Immersive Canvas: Information Visualization in Immersive Environments, Keynote to Workshop ImAna at IEEE AIVR
November 2020: Data Comics, Data Stories Symposium, Kings College London
October 2020: Data Comics Guest Lecture, Kings College London
January 2020: Keynote to Dealing with Data conference (Edinburgh): Dealing vis Data
June 2019: Edinburgh Futures Seminar: Visualizing Peace and Conflicts
May 2019: Kings College, London: Data visualization for exploration, explanation and beyond.
December 2018: Shonan Seminar to Immersive Analytics (Tokio): Visualizing Space-Time Cubes in AR.
October 2018: Tuto@Mate (online webinar): Interactive Visualization for Dynamic, Multivariate, and Geographic Networks.
September 2018: University of Tilburg (Netherlands): Data Comics for Data-Driven Storytelling
September 2018: Design Informatics Seminar Series (University of Edinburgh): Perspectives on Data Visualization.
May 2018: Keynote for Workshop on Big Data Analytics and Business Applications, AVI Conference (Casteglione della Pescaia): Interaction Literacy for Data Visualization.
May 2018: Tesco Bank: Data Visualization for Exploration, Explanation, and Engagement
May 2018: OpenVis Conference (Paris): Drawing into the AR-Canvas: Designing Embedded Visualizations for Augmented Reliaty.
March 2018: DataTech Fest Edinburgh: Tools for Data Visualization
March 2018: Alan Turing Institute: Visualization for Interactive Data Exploration
February 2018: Controversies in the Data Society Talk Series, (Edinburgh): Seven Myths about Data Visualization
…

Scientific Workshops

Envisioning Future Productivity for Immersive Analytics: Barrett Ens, Benjamin Bach, Maxime Cordeil, Ulrich Engelke, Marcos Serrano, Wesley Willett
Interactive Visualization of Dynamic Multivariate Networks with the Vistorian:Benjamin Bach, Workshop at The Connected Past, University of Oxford, 2018
**VisGuides: 2nd Workshop on the Creation, Curation, Critique and Conditioning of Principles and Guidelines in Visualization: Alexandra Diehl, Benjamin Bach, Alfie Abdul-Rahman, IEEE VIS 2018, Berlin
Storyboards for Science: Combining the Visual and Verbal to Create Engaging Communication: David Rogers, Francesca Samsel, Sean Cunningham, Benjamin Bach, IEEE VIS 2018, Berlin
Interactive Visualization of Dynamic Multivariate Networks with the Vistorian: Benjamin Bach, Jean-Daniel Fekete, Nicole Dufournaud, Open workshop, EHESS, Paris, 2018
Interactive Visualization of Dynamic Multivariate Networks with the Vistorian:Benjamin Bach, Workshop at CAA conference, University of Tübingen, 2018
Immersive Analytics: Exploring Future Visualization and Interaction Technologies for Data Analytics: Benjamin Bach, Maxime Cordeil, Tim Dwyer, Bongshin Lee, Bahador Saket, Alex Endert, Christopher Collins, Sheelagh Carpendale, IEEE VIS 2017 Phoenix, AZ
Discovery Jam: David Rogers, Dan Keefe, Francesca Samsel, Miriah Meyer, Cecilia Aragon, Benjamin Bach: IEEE VIS 2017, Phoenix, AZ
Interactive Visualization of Dynamic Multivariate Networks with the Vistorian: Benjamin Bach, Workshop at The Connected Past, University of Bournemouth, 2017
Immersive Analytics: Exploring Future Interaction and Visualization Technologies for Data Analytics: B Bach, R Dachselt, S Carpendale, T Dwyer, C Collins, B Lee. Proceedings of the 2016 ACM on Interactive Surfaces and Spaces, 529-533

Teaching

Ongoing

Data Science for Design, semester 1 (postgraduate)
Data Visualisation, semester 2 (postgraduate)

Past

Data Visualization for Professionals
The Human Factor

Research Grants

2021 EPSRC (PI): Visovery: Semi-automatic Data Tours to Support Data Exploration and Visualisation Literacy £320,000
2020 MRC (Co-I): COVID-19: ISARIC Coronavirus Clinical Characterisation Consortium (ISARIC-4C) Workpackage £60,000
2019 Scottish Founding Council (SCF): Data Visualization Online Course for Upskilling, £80,000
2019 Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF): Peacetech Initiative: partnership for interactive mediation, £46,000
2018 EPSRC Capital Grant: VisHub: A Collaborative Data Visualization Space for Interdisciplinary Research, Teaching, and Public Engagement, £200,000
2018 Edinburgh Futures Institute Research Grant: Visualizing Inequalities £8,000
2017 IGS (School internal) PhD scholarship funding: ~£60,000
2017 Principal’s Teaching Award: £15,000
2014 Microsoft Research – Inria Joint Centre 18 month position
2010-2014 French Government Ph.D. grant: $100.000, over 3 years