ESP Biography

The amount of data in our world is continually increasing. Good visualization of complex data aids understanding and comprehension. This class will be a fun introduction to creating beautiful, informative and interactive data visualization. We will learn how humans process and perceive visual information/images. We will also explore design principles, good design practices for visualizations, and various visualization tools used in various fields, and we will put them into practice for our own mini projects. A small studio-based, interactive session that combines programming, data science and graphic design, the class will be a fun and educational experience for those who want to learn more about visualization in the age of Big Data!

The amount of data in our world is continually increasing. Good visualization of complex data aids understanding and comprehension. This class will be a fun introduction to creating beautiful and informative data visualization. We will learn how humans process and perceive visual information/images. We will also explore design principles, good design practices for visualizations, and various visualization tools used in various fields, and we will put them into practice for our own mini projects. A small studio-based, interactive session that combines programming, data science and graphic design, the class will be a fun and educational experience for those who want to learn more about visualization in the age of Big Data!

All day long, our retinas are bombarded with endless streams of photons. How does the eye and the brain translate these signals into meaningful, recognizable objects and scenes, allowing us to recognize a four-legged blob as a dog despite innumerable variations in shape, viewpoint, and lighting? We will paint a broad picture of the mechanisms that allow humans to see, and more importantly, understand what we see. First, we will explore how the eyes and the brain learn to talk to each other during the first year of a child’s life. Second, we will discuss how the brain integrates information from individual neurons to represent objects, and we’ll see how functional imaging can reveal how the brain encodes what someone’s seeing. Throughout, we will emphasize how scientists designed the critical experiments to make these discoveries, and we’ll try our hand at brainstorming experiments ourselves!

We’re usually taught that RNA is the "ugly duckling" in the cell. But over the past decade, monumental advances have completely redefined its role in the cell. We now know that RNA comes in different sizes, shapes, and identities, and by virtue of this flexibility, cells use them as crucial factors in immune defense, development, and environmental responses. RNA is also being commandeered by scientists in novel ways to revolutionize our study of diseases and molecular mechanisms. From simple concepts, we’ll embark on a whirlwind tour of the currently known RNA world, and you will leave the class with knowledge at the cutting edge of RNA biology. You will not only have an appreciation for how dynamic the cell really is, but also understand how RNA makes all of this possible.