CDS Professors Juliana Freire and Cláudio T. Silva Receive IEEE VIS Test of Time Award
The IEEE VIS Test of Time Awards celebrate the enduring impact of research papers in the field of visualization. This year, CDS is proud to announce that two of its esteemed members, Institute Professor and Professor of Computer Science, Tandon School of Engineering and Professor of Data Science Juliana Freire and Institute Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at NYU Tandon School of Engineering, and Professor of Data Science at the NYU Center for Data Science Cláudio T. Silva, have been honored with one of these awards for their groundbreaking paper on urban data visualization.
Freire and Silva’s awarded paper, titled “Visual Exploration of Big Spatio-Temporal Urban Data: A Study of New York City Taxi Trips,” co-authored with Nivan Ferreira, Jorge Poco, Huy T. Vo, was called “one of the landmark papers in urban data visualization, making several truly impressive contributions, including query language developments and the seamless integration of data querying to handle real-world, large-scale data.”
By leveraging New York City taxi records, the authors collaborated with economists and traffic engineers to showcase the capabilities of their framework. Their insights into the economic incentives of taxi locations and the influence of traffic patterns on demand have been pivotal in shaping urban analytics research.
The prizes were based both on objective measures like citations and also estimates of the quality and longevity and influence of the papers’ ideas. The committee called Freire and Silva’s paper “a seminal work in urban analytics,” and wrote that “The impact of this work is also expressed in the tremendous number of citations this paper has received thus far and still receives today.”
Prizes were awarded for papers from each of IEEE VIS’s “three historic conferences”: VAST, InfoVis and SciVis. Freire and Silva’s paper was in the VAST category.
Juliana Freire, Director of the VIDA Center, has published over 250 technical papers, holds 12 U.S. patents, and her contributions to large-scale data analysis, visualization, and web information discovery are many. She has also been recognized as an ACM Fellow, a AAAS Fellow, and was awarded the ACM SIGMOD Contributions Award in 2020.
Cláudio T. Silva, also a Director of the VIDA Center, has had an illustrious career, marked by over 300 publications and a significant role in co-founding the Center for Urban Science and Progress in 2012. With an emphasis on visualization and graphics, geometric computing, and urban computing, Silva’s work has garnered over 25,000 citations on Google Scholar.
The recognition of Freire and Silva’s work by the IEEE VIS Test of Time Awards underscores CDS’ commitment to fostering forward-looking research that stands the test of time. As we celebrate their achievements, we are reminded of the importance of producing work that remains relevant and influential for decades to come.
By Stephen Thomas
