Howdy! I'm a data visualization designer with a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan. I craft data-driven stories to communicate the urgency and solutions around climate change and social justice issues. My work spans digital and novel physical mediums - such as LEGOs, oil paints, bullet journals, and more. Most recently, I won a Big Ten data visualization championship for my data visualization made out of LEGOs!
Please reach out if you're interested in learning more about my work: elsielee@umich.edu.
Datavis Specialist
Postal Regulatory Commission
2024 - current
Data visualization specialist at the Postal Regulatory Commission. Visualizing data on service performance and finances of the postal service.
PhD student
University of Michigan
2019 - 2024
PhD student in the School of Information at University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Advised by the wonderful Eytan Adar.
Communications Fellow
Ecology Center
2023
Data visualization designer at the Ecology Center, a local Ann Arbor nonprofit for environmental health and climate justice.
Research Intern
Microsoft Research
2022
Summer intern at Microsoft Research, researching narration in data storytelling videos with John Thompson, Bongshin Lee, and Steven Drucker.
Summer PhD Intern
American Institutes for Research
2021
Data visualization intern at the American Institutes for Research, visualizing the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) data with Cadelle Hemphill, Tiago Caliço, and Juanita Hicks.
Lab Manager
Northwestern University
2017 - 2019
Lab manager at the Visual Thinking Lab with Steve Franconeri at Northwestern University.
BA, Information Technology
& Psychology
Rutgers University
2017
Research assistant at Rutgers University with Eileen Kowler and Jason Rubenstein, using eye-tracking techniques to study visual perception of data visualizations.
🏆 Elsie Lee-Robbins & Eytan Adar (2022). Affective Learning Objectives for Communicative Visualizations. IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics. [pdf] 🏆 Best Paper Award!
Elsie Lee-Robbins, Shiqing (Licia) He, & Eytan Adar (2021). Learning objectives, insights, and assessments: How specification formats impact design. IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics. [pdf]
Eytan Adar & Elsie Lee (2020). Communicative visualizations as a learning problem. IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics. [pdf]