NEWS

Louisiana Tech’s “New Frontiers in Biomedical Research” series concludes Monday, April 23, with a presentation by Dr. Candice A. Welhausen concerning data visualizations in the field of public health and epidemiology.

• Presenter: Candice A. Welhausen, Auburn University
• Presentation: “Visualizing Data, Visualizing Knowledge”
• Monday, April 23, 3:30 p.m., University Hall.
• Open to the public; members of the community are encouraged to attend.
• Welhausen’s visit is sponsored by both the College of Liberal Arts and the English Department.

In the past five years, emergent public health threats such as Ebola in West Africa (2014), zika in the Western Hemisphere (2016), and influenza in the United States this year have received extensive news coverage, which has increasingly relied on data visualizations to communicate the extent of the epidemic. In her presentation, Welhausen will analyze several graphical forms that are commonly used to communicate quantitative information during such events. She’ll discuss their design strategies and their visual effects, and she’ll present guidelines that creators might consider when constructing these graphics.
Welhausen earned her Ph.D. from the University of New Mexico and is an assistant professor of technical and professional communication at Auburn.  Before becoming an academic, Welhausen was a technical writer/editor at the University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center in the department formerly known as Epidemiology and Cancer Control. Her work specifically focuses on how data visualizations in the health field shape the ways individuals, organizations, and societies construct and share knowledge about disease, illness, and health. Her recent publications include the journal articles “At Your Own Risk: User-Contributed Flu Maps, Participatory Surveillance, and an Emergent DIY Risk Assessment Ethic” (2017 in Communication Design Quarterly) and “Toward a Topos of Visual Rhetoric: Teaching Aesthetics through Color and Typography” (2016 in Journal of Technical Writing and Communication).
This is the fifth year of the New Frontiers in Biomedical Research Seminar Series, a series that brings internationally recognized scientists to Louisiana Tech to visit with students, faculty, and staff. The series has led to new collaborations for our faculty, and summer research and graduate school opportunities for our students. The series has also demonstrated the interdisciplinary nature of research and has grown to include presentations on visual communication in the form of medical illustration. The series has created an opportunity to introduce Louisiana Tech and the surrounding community to faculty from other universities across the country, sharing, and enhancing our resources.
“The opportunities for our faculty, students, and community to interact with world-class researchers and biomedical professionals are experiences that will inspire excellence,” said Dr. Les Guice, Tech president.
For more information, contact Jamie Newman, 318.257.2622, or jjnewman@latech.edu