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Evan Peck @peck.phd · 5d

omg - this alt.vis paper about NASA-TLX was styled like the original NASA-TLX paper 😍

arxiv.org/pdf/2509.24643

Evan Peck @peck.phd · 13d

We're hiring a TT faculty position in Environmental Justice & Information/Technology. I love our interdisciplinary & collegial department - come join us or pass it onto someone who might!

jobs.colorado.edu/jobs/JobDeta...

Assistant Professor in Environmental Justice and Information/Technology

jobs.colorado.edu

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Evan Peck @peck.phd · 20d

Given funding uncertainty, we wrote about why depts & faculty should try to communicate openly with PhD applicants about any changes to their admissions processes, including if it's "nothing has changed".

Let's do what we can (when we can) to prevent cascading anxiety.

cra.org/crn/2025/09/...

Guiding PhD Applicants with Clear Communication: CRA-E Calls for Openness in Computing Admissions

By Evan Peck, Associate Professor, University of Colorado, Boulder, CRA-E Board Member; Michael Hilton, Teaching Professor, Institute for Software Research, Carnegie Mellon University, CRA-E Co-Cha…

cra.org

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Evan Peck @peck.phd · Aug 12

Must be the new common core

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Evan Peck @peck.phd · Aug 11

LLMs are good at lots of things, but bring some joy into your life and have try to make some simple, image-based tasks.

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Evan Peck @peck.phd · Aug 11

Listen, everyone's mad that ChatGPT 5 can't capture the full nuance of their discipline. But what about its potential to rapidly develop compelling, engaging visuals for education?

It took me only a single prompt to create this emoji-based multiplication table for my child.

It looks like a multiplication table (with rows and columns 1 through 10), but there are many many errors. For example, the columns go 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 10, 10. The final 10 only has single emojis as answers. Another example is that there are many cells which don't align with the row/column (33 x 45 or 100 x 80). Each cell also tends to have 1-4 emoji, regardless of the multiplication.

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Reposted by Evan Peck

Joel S. @joelhs.bsky.social · Aug 10

I feel terrible for the students described in this article, because they bought into the lie that they've been hearing from politicians for years - don't study humanities, study computers, and you will get a job. All these students did was listen to what we told them. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/10/t...

Goodbye, $165,000 Tech Jobs. Student Coders Seek Work at Chipotle.

www.nytimes.com

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Evan Peck @peck.phd · Aug 6

I learned about Bill Collins today, CU's 1st black football captain. This image captures Bill at the 1969 Liberty Bowl coin-toss, standing in front of an all-white, never-integrated Alabama team that brought 40 players to stand opposite him.

▶️ youtu.be/RBNX8L5RTIA?...
🔗 cubuffs.com/news/2025/8/...

Photo from the coin toss at the 1969 Liberty Bowl. Bill Collins, left, can be seen standing alone in front of an entire row of white Alabama football players

Evan Peck @peck.phd · Aug 3

As I start building infrastructure for year 2 of my growing group, a shout-out to @jonfroehlich.bsky.social and the @makeabilitylab.bsky.social handbook for helping me reason through the implicit processes & practices that should be more visible to our lab.

🔗 docs.google.com/document/d/1...

Makeability Lab Handbook

Makeability Lab Handbook By Professor Jon Froehlich and lab membersAllen School of Computer Science and EngineeringUniversity of Washington Welcome to the Makeability Lab! 👋 We are so happy that yo...

docs.google.com

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Evan Peck @peck.phd · Jul 30

This wild AI example just happened to me + a colleague trying to decide on "wellbeing" or "well-being" for public material.

Depending on query framing, Google gives inverse recommendations for US audiences!

Almost as if its inferring my preference from order and trying to make me happy 🤔

Left, screen shot of google search results for "well-being vs. wellbeing". Right, screen shot of google search results for "wellbeing vs. well-being" - reversing the hyphenation. When hyphenated "well-being" was first in the query, it said that was the "traditional and preferred spelling in North American English". When non-hyphenated "wellbeing" was first, it said "this was the more common and preferred spelling in many parts of the world, including the United States, Canada, and Australia"

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Evan Peck @peck.phd · Jul 30

As a fellow "personal & local vis" evangelist, this article is rich with great examples.

Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists @thebulletin.org · Jul 25

Data visualizations are some of the most powerful tools in a climate science communicator’s playbook. However, designing visuals that are clear to the public and policy makers is not a straightforward task, writes @rachitdubey.bsky.social .

So, what works?

How clear and simple data visualizations bring the climate crisis home

Climate change is a slow-moving disaster. We need graphics that capture both its pace and its impact.

thebulletin.org

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Evan Peck @peck.phd · Jul 29

ChatGPT is out here gifting my research to other folk today...

> "Studies like “Data is Personal” (Kovacs et al., 2019) show that data framed to reflect local or personal experience increases trust and perceived relevance."

(unfortunately, I'm actually flattered it surfaced in an unrelated query)

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Evan Peck @peck.phd · Jul 28

The visual design in this article is just straight-up gorgeous.

Reuters Graphics @graphics.reuters.com · Jul 28

Congress has passed hundreds of laws protecting federal public lands over the past century through bipartisan efforts and with the support of local governments. Now, Trump’s administration is pushing policies and legislation that upend these protections.

www.reuters.com/graphics/USA...

Eroding protections for public lands

Trump policies reshape the role of federally owned land, against the tide of U.S. public opinion

www.reuters.com

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Evan Peck @peck.phd · Jul 28

a green spinning wheel with the words yes on it

ALT: a green spinning wheel with the words yes on it

media.tenor.com

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Evan Peck @peck.phd · May 8

Even if I'm wrong (probably), it's kind of interesting that both publications chose color palettes that forces *every* value into "rising" or "falling" visual schemes. Wouldn't this make every city look a little bit dramatic, even if it was among the most stable?

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Evan Peck @peck.phd · May 8

A wild, not-investigated guess on the vis discrepancy:
Since the two colors (orange/green) diverge around zero, maybe it depends on what "side" you bin the zeroes in your dataset?

If that's the case, I'd probably redesign both to make 0 gray.

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Evan Peck @peck.phd · May 8

Dug up the paper (left) the WPost vis (right) is based on to see how they presented the same data. It's fascinating to me how subtle color differences can shape the spatial patterns we see.

(I can't quite figure out why more of Houston seems to be rising in the paper than the WPost article 🤔)

screenshot from academic paper vis showing sinking areas of Houston. Seems to suggest most of Houston is sinking, but shows more areas rising than WPost vis (next image)

screenshot from WPost vis showing sinking areas of Houston. Seems to suggest nearly all of Houston is sinking.

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Evan Peck @peck.phd · May 8

Chernoff fishes

Koen Van den Eeckhout @vandeneeckhoutkoen.bsky.social · May 8

🐟 This is one of the weirder charts in my collection of examples: a set of fish icons to compare funds.

I use it when I talk about visual variables. This chart uses SIZE as a visual variable in 15 different ways, to show 15 different aspects of a fund.

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A stylized infographic features fish illustrations to visually represent different investment profiles. Each fish encodes multiple financial characteristics. The fins on its back indicate the region, distinguishing among the Americas, Asia, the European Union, and Africa & the Middle East, as well as whether the market is emerging or developed. The shape of the tail represents the company's market capitalization—small, medium, or large. The size of the fish's eye reflects its performance, defined as the current return as a percentage of its historical maximum. The contour of the fish's body conveys investment style, such as value, core, or growth. Finally, the shape and position of the fish's mouth and side fin signal the sector classification: cyclical (like materials and financials), sensitive (like energy and technology), or defensive (such as healthcare and utilities). A legend on the right explains the full visual grammar, mapping each fish attribute to its financial meaning.

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Evan Peck @peck.phd · May 7

I think we have overloaded the term "student reviewer", and your response is totally reasonable given that muddiness.

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Evan Peck @peck.phd · May 7

I actually don't think that option was intended to capture all students who are also reviewers.

My understanding is it is meant to capture the specific "student reviewer" role that is meant as a training program this year at vis: ieeevis.org/year/2025/in...

Student Reviewer Guide

Website for IEEE VIS.

ieeevis.org

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Reposted by Evan Peck

Jeremy Van Cleve @vancleve.theoretical.bio · May 2

More awful news.

The US has been the leader in scientific research for **80** years due to robust funding for NSF, NIH, and other scientific agencies.

All that infrastructure, human capital, and international prestige that we have built over those years is at real risk of just collapsing.

Dan Garisto @dangaristo.bsky.social · May 2

NEW: Starting May 5, NSF will implement an across-the-board 15% indirect cost rate (mirroring policies at DOE, NIH)

Also, NSF staff expect 341 additional terminations today, bringing the total number of terminations to ~1,380.

Effective May 5, 2025, NSF will apply a standard indirect cost rate not to exceed 15% to all
grants and cooperative agreements awarded to IHEs for which indirect costs are allowable.1 The
awardee is authorized to determine the appropriate rate up to this limit.

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Reposted by Evan Peck

Kate Starbird @katestarbird.bsky.social · May 1

Crushing to hear of more junior colleagues in the computer science & human-computer interaction (HCI) space whose NSF CAREER grants were terminated this week. I'm hopeful that philanthropic funders can find a way to support this generation of scientists studying online manipulation, bias in AI, etc.

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Reposted by Evan Peck

Dr. Casey Fiesler @cfiesler.bsky.social · Apr 26

This is one of the worst violations of research ethics I've ever seen. Manipulating people in online communities using deception, without consent, is not "low risk" and, as evidenced by the discourse in this Reddit post, resulted in harm.

Great thread from Sarah, and I have additional thoughts. 🧵

Sarah Gilbert @sarahagilbert.bsky.social · Apr 26

The mods of r/ChangeMyView shared the sub was the subject of a study to test the persuasiveness of LLMs & that they didn't consent. There’s a lot that went wrong, so here’s a 🧵 unpacking it, along with some ideas for how to do research with online communities ethically. tinyurl.com/59tpt988

From the changemyview community on Reddit

Explore this post and more from the changemyview community

tinyurl.com

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Reposted by Evan Peck

Dr. Casey Fiesler @cfiesler.bsky.social · Apr 23

From my NSF grant that was TERMINATED on Friday for not advancing priorities: "AI literacy is important [...] However, not all relevant learning happens in the classroom, especially since in the United States, many K-12 schools still do not have computing courses." www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/...

Fact Sheet: President Donald J. Trump Advances AI Education for American Youth

EMPOWERING AMERICA’S YOUTH: Today, President Donald J. Trump signed an executive order to create new educational and workforce development opportunities

www.whitehouse.gov

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Reposted by Evan Peck

Malinda Lo @malindalo.bsky.social · Apr 14

Harvard redid its whole homepage to push back against the administration’s demands. I mean, this is just a website but I think it’s kind of a great PR move: www.harvard.edu

Harvard University

Harvard University is devoted to excellence in teaching, learning, and research, and to developing leaders who make a difference globally.

www.harvard.edu

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