Contact
Biography
Robert S. Laramee received a bachelors degree in physics, cum laude, from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst (UMass). He received a masters degree in computer science from the University of New Hampshire, Durham. He was awarded a PhD from the Vienna University of Technology (Gruess Gott TUWien), Austria at the Institute of Computer Graphics and Algorithms in 2005. From 2001 to 2006 he was a researcher at the VRVis Research Center (www.vrvis.at) and a software engineer at AVL (www.avl.com) in the department of Advanced Simulation Technologies. He was Associate Professor at Swansea University (Prifysgol Cymru Abertawe), Wales in the Department of Computer Science (Adran Gwyddor Cyfrifiadur). He is Professor of Computer Science and Data Visualization at the University of Nottingham.
Expertise Summary
My research interests are in the areas of scientific visualization, information visualization, and visual analytics. I have published more than 190 peer-reviewed papers in scientific journals and conferences.
Teaching Summary
In 2019, I was awarded a Senior Fellowship from the Higher Education Academy, (Recognition Reference: PR166261) UK. I have have taught data visualization, software engineering, and postgraduate… read more
Research Summary
I carry out research in the following areas: scientific visualization including flow visualization, visualization of molecular dynamics simulation data, visualization of computational fluid dynamics… read more
Every business and researcher has large, complex data sets they need to understand.
About Visualization
We are interested in carrying out research in the area of data visualization with industry partners. Data visualization exploits the power of both commodity computer graphics and the human visual system in order to convey meaning and insight into large collections of data. In other words, visualization generates meaningful pictures that provide much more insight and meaning than, say, looking at a large spreadsheet with thousands of raw numbers on it. Data visualization can summarize, thousands, millions, billions or more numbers very rapidly through the use of computer generated graphics. These graphics convey meaning and insight much more effectively via the visual system. Data visualization excels at: (1) exploration-helping users to explore their data without any prior knowledge and discover new patterns and features, (2) analysis-helping expert users, who know a lot about their data, in order to confirm or refute a given hypothesis, and (3) presentation-helping users communicate the results of exploration and analysis through the use of pictures and videos.
The Benefits to Industry
Collaboration with an academic partner offers a number of benefits including:
1. Cutting edge and innovative ideas,
2. Education on state-of-the-art software,
3. Access to specialists in the field,
4. Opportunities for potential hires,
5. Opportunities to test higher risk ideas.
Most, if not all, businesses can use visualization because they have very large collections of complex data set which are not fully exploited and maybe not even fully understood. Visualization can help anyone get the most out of their data by supporting visual exploration, analysis, presentation, and verification. For some examples of advanced visualization, please visit our YouTube channel which hosts several examples:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=150zAE1aLz8&list=PLZo40sVmw_4NyCRaBvIAWt2V5DoZLZlrN
Some of the companies we have worked with include:
Grid-Tools Ltd, GoFore Ltd, QPC Ltd, We Predict Ltd, Zenotech Ltd, HEOR Ltd, Amplyfi Ltd, VistaDraft Ltd
Please see our talk entitled, The Benefits of Collaborating with Industry
https://youtu.be/36OShLtuGoE?si=aI5HALj1Q0bp-OQO
If you are interested in collaborating, please let us know.
In 2019, I was awarded a Senior Fellowship from the Higher Education Academy, (Recognition Reference: PR166261) UK. I have have taught data visualization, software engineering, and postgraduate skills training courses, all of which can be found on my YouTube channel.
The entire data visualization course can be viewed here:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZo40sVmw_4No1_K-Xllf04O977PYngq1
A partial list of software engineering lectures can be viewed here:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZo40sVmw_4MtSKbhU4e8-tl8qG9ueyRj
A postgraduate skills training course can be viewed here:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZo40sVmw_4MP_CoR5jrC-XZggCOQMdhk
I was awarded Senior Fellow status of the HEA in 2019. The reviewers agreed that I engage successfully across all five key areas of teaching activity: I demonstrate appropriate knowledge and understanding across all aspects of core knowledge and commitment to all professional values. I successfully integrate subject and pedagogic research and scholarship in teaching activities and academic practice. I engage in continuing professional development with respect to teaching, learning, assessment, scholarship, and professional practices. I coordinate, support, supervise, manage, and mentor both my peers and students in teaching and learning. I demonstrate a clear commitment to pedagogy through the publication of award winning, internationally peer-reviewed teaching material featured in several journal publications [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7] and conference contributions [8, 9].
I record and archive teaching videos to support students, and develop strategies for undergraduate, masters, and phd candidate supervision which have been adopted by other colleagues in the college and beyond the university. I've also developed links with industry and mediate between how my subject is taught and what is expected of graduates in the workplace.
[1] Robert S. Laramee, Bob's Project Guidelines: Writing a Dissertation for a BSc. in Computer Science, Innovation in Teaching and Learning in Information and Computer Science (ITALICS), Vol. 10, No. 1, February 2011, pages 43-54, A publication of the UK Higher Education Academy (HEA) ( http://dx.doi.org/10.11120/ital.2011.10010043 )
[2] Robert S. Laramee, How To Write A Visualization Research Paper: A Starting Point in Computer Graphics Forum (CGF), Vol. 29, No. 8, 2010, pages 2363-2371 ( http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8659.2010.01748.x )
[3] Robert S. Laramee, How To Write A Visualization Research Paper: A Starting Point in Computer Graphics Forum (CGF), Vol. 29, No. 8, 2010, pages 2363-2371 ( http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8659.2010.01748.x )
[4] Robert S. Laramee, Bob's Concise Coding Conventions (C3) , in Advances in Computer Science and Engineering (ACSE), Vol. 4, No. 1, February 2010, pages 23-36
[5] Robert S. Laramee, How to Read a Visualization Research Paper: Extracting the Essentials, IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications (IEEE CG&A), Vol. 31, No. 3, May/June 2011, pages 78-82 ( http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/MCG.2011.44 )
[6] Dan R. Lipşa and Robert S. Laramee, Open Source Software in Computer Science and IT Higher Education: A Case Study, International Journal of Advanced Computer Science and Applications (IJACSA), Vol. 2, No. 1, 2011, pages 10-17
[7] Lindy Ryan, Deborah Silver, Robert S. Laramee, and David Ebert, Teaching Data Visualization as a Skill, IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications (IEEE CG&A), Volume 39, Issue 2, March-April 2019, ( https://doi.org/10.1109/MCG.2018.2889526 )
[8] Liam McNabb and Robert S. Laramee, How to Write a Visualization Survey Paper: A Starting Point, in EUROGRAPHICS 2019, Education Papers, pages 29-39, 6-10 May 2019, Genova, Italy ( http://dx.doi.org/10.2312/eged.20191026 )
[9] Robert S. Laramee, How to Write a Visualization Research Paper: The Art and Mechanics, in EUROGRAPHICS 2009, Education Papers, pages 59-66, 30 March - 3 April 2009, Munich, Germany (selected as the best education paper) ( http://dx.doi.org/10.2312/eged.20091019 )
Current Research
I carry out research in the following areas: scientific visualization including flow visualization, visualization of molecular dynamics simulation data, visualization of computational fluid dynamics data and information visualization including visualization of call center data (with industry), smart city visualization (with industry), visualization literacy, visualization of electronic health records (EHRs), visual digital humanities, geo-spatial visualization, visualization of high-dimensional data, and visualization of text data.
Past Research
sports visualization, visualization of foam dynamics simulation data, visualization of translation data, visualization of EEG data
Future Research
FinTech visualization, LegalTech visualization