Designing Visual Stories & Graphics: A Panel Conversation
Monday, November 2, 2026 6-8:15 p.m.
Panel Conversation
6–7 p.m., McCartney Hall 106
The past decade has witnessed a proliferation of creative approaches to data visualization and graphic storytelling. Panelists will share their stories and career paths, as well as examples of their work rendering complex information and narratives through the creation of powerful graphics.
- Francesca Paris is a reporter for The Upshot, a section of The New York Times specializing in explanatory and analytical journalism
- Tanvi Sharma is a design technologist operating at the intersection of data, aesthetics, and the humanities
- Ally Levine writes, illustrates and develops visually-driven stories on the Reuters Graphics Desk
Moderated by Ab Mosca ’14, visiting assistant professor in computer science and statistical and data sciences
Interactive Workshops
7:15–8:15 p.m., Various Locations
“Hey Data, Make Me Feel Something”
With Ally Levine, McCartney Hall 201
Numbers take time to understand, while colors and shapes are more immediate. They already hold meaning in our lives, stirring emotion and sparking memories. Using these design elements in your graphics offers your audience a way to connect to the information. In this workshop, we’ll go beyond simply showing the trend and explore how to visually represent data in ways that evoke the feeling of the story.
“Draw Your Own Chart”
With Francesca Paris, McCartney Hall 101
Computers and modern tools have made actually building data visualizations easier than ever. But figuring out what you want to show has always been the hard part. We’ll slow down a little in this workshop: we’re going to pick topics we’re interested in, find data, look at some different chart forms and then use paper, pens, tape and glue to make physical representations of the numbers.
“Visualizing Histories: A Peabody-Inspired Data Workshop”
With Tanvi Sharma, McCartney Hall 106
Visualization can produce knowledge in many ways. What perspectives do we gain when we expand our view of the past? Building on Elizabeth Palmer Peabody’s “chronological grids,” this workshop begins with historical data visualizations as inspiration, then guides participants through humanistically-informed exercises exploring what they’re curious about and how history gets recorded. Drawing from their own calendars, participants select a timeframe—maybe a month—to document their events, asking: what do we remember, forget, or want to forget? Participants record entries in a CSV file and upload them to an interactive grid to see their history take shape.
