Uzma Haque Syeda

Chelmsford · Massachusetts · syeda.u@northeastern.edu

I am a Data Visualization and HCI researcher with a PhD in Computer Science from the Khoury College of Computer Sciences at Northeastern University. During my doctoral studies, I was a member (now an alumna) of the Vis Lab at Northeastern University, where I worked under the supervision of my advisor Dr. Michelle A. Borkin.

My primary research interest lies at the intersection of Data Visualization and HCI, particularly with a focus on theories and methods of design studies, replication studies, and visualization for social good. My work also extends into visualization evaluations, focusing on user studies and participatory design approaches that center the experiences and perspectives of real users and how they make sense of visualizations in real contexts. My work contributes methods and frameworks that aim to bridge the gap between visualization pedagogy and research and strengthens rigor and reproducibility in the field. I am especially motivated by the challenge of bringing research practices into data visualization classrooms, developing approaches that make design thinking accessible to novice students while preserving the complexity and nuances of real-world design studies and user experience research.

I have 6 years of experience leading mixed-methods research and user-centered design processes. Throughout my time at Northeastern University, I taught and mentored over 200 students and orchestrated more than 100 collaborative design projects with both local, and international collaborators, including nonprofits, city councils, educational institutes, and for-profit organizations. I also supervised 10 UX projects in an HCI course, where student teams explored the theme of belongingness on campus. Guiding these projects, through need-finding, interviewing, prototyping, and evaluation allowed me to foster students’ design creativity and help them transform early ideas into thoughtful and well-reasoned final products. My passion for teaching and mentoring is grounded in inclusivity, reflection, and helping students build confidence in navigating the ambiguities of the design process and in connecting their data visualization and HCI knowledge to real-world needs.

I am originally from Bangladesh, where I completed my undergraduate studies in Electrical and Electronic Engineering. I enjoy cooking, drawing, reading, and spending time with my family.

Education

Northeastern University

PhD in Computer Science
2025

Northeastern University

M.S. in Computer Science
2021

University of Dhaka

B.Sc. in Electrical and Electronic Engineering
2017

Professional Experience

Research Experience

  • Graduate Research Assistant in the VIS Lab at Khoury College of Computer Sciences, Northeastern University.
    • Advisor: Professor Michelle A. Borkin
  • Undergraduate Research on a project titled “Visual behavior analysis between neuro-typical children and children with Autism Spectrum Disorder.”
  • Academic Technology Scholar (Summer 2022)

    • Contributed Talk

    At IEEE VIS 2021, I delivered the talk “Facilitating Visualization for Social Good in Academic Courses” at the Visualization for Social Good workshop. I also contributed to the Visualization for Social Good tutorial at IEEE VIS 2019, where I presented the talk “Service-Learning in Visualization.”

    Organizing Experience

    I served as one of the organizing members for the Visualization for Social Good workshop at IEEE VIS 2023 and the Visualization for Social Good tutorial at IEEE VIS 2019.

    Teaching Experience

    I served as the Instructor of Record for one undergraduate Data Visualization course (Information Presentation & Visualization)at Northeastern University, where I taught core concepts in design principles, visualization techniques, user-centric design processes, and evaluation. I developed and delivered the full curriculum and mentored students as they applied these concepts in collaborative, real-world design study projects with real collaborators.

    I served as a Teaching Assistant for seven data visualization courses , across in-person, online, and hybrid formats, supporting instruction, grading, and extensive project mentoring. Across these semesters, I orchestrated more than 100 design study projects with over 200 students, collaborating with real-world partners, including nonprofits, city councils, education institutes, individual researchers, and for-profit organizations. In these roles, I guided student teams through each stage of the user-centered design process, as well as the visualization creation and implementation process, helping them translate their collaborators’ needs into meaningful and well-developed visualization solutions.

    I was also a Teaching Assistant for two HCI courses , and in one of them I supervised 10 UX projects , guiding student teams through the full user-centered design process, from early concept development to high fidelity prototyping and developing, and supporting them as they created effective, and informed solutions.

    Outreach and Volunteering Experience

    I regularly serve as a reviewer for leading venues in visualization and HCI, including reviewing seven submissions across IEEE VIS (2021, 2023), CHI (2026), Vis4Good (2022, 2023), and Creativity & Cognition (2021).

    I have also held program committee roles for the IEEE VIS workshop on Visualization for Social Good, serving as a program committee member in both years 2021 and 2022. In these roles, I helped evaluate submissions, support authors, and contributed to the growth of the Vis4Good community.

    I have collaborated with a local neighborhood association called Chester Square Neighbors to help them with their data and visualization needs through a design study project in a graduate course on Data Visualization (CS 7250 - Information Visualization: Theory and Applications). My team and I volunteered in the neighborhood association to get a better understanding of the problems they faced regarding their neighborhood park that was in the need for renovation and improved facilities, but the association members lacked concrete data-driven evidence to present to the City Council. The design study project in collaboration with the neighborhood association was aimed to provide necessary data-driven visualizations to the community partners in order to facilitate better communication and presentation of the problems they were facing regarding their park, which in turn would help them get the attention from the City council for funding.

    I also volunteered and taught Data Visualization in the Multi-media CS course at Boston Latin Academy by delivering a lecture on “Common mistakes in Data Visualization” and teaching the basics of Tableau.

    Earlier in my academic journey I also volunteered at the International Conference on Imaging, Vision & Pattern Recognition (ICIVPR 2017) and the International conference on Informatics, Electronics and vision conference (ICIEV 2014)

    Awards and Fellowships

    • Best Paper Award at CHI 2020 for the paper Design Study "Lite" Methodology: Expediting Design Studies and Enabling the Synergy of Visualization Pedagogy and Social Good(Paper Link)
    • 2025 PhD Teaching Award in recognition of exemplary teaching accomplishments as a TA and for developing a classroom pedagogy that inspires peers and colleagues.
    • 1-year Graduate Fellowship Award from the Khoury College of Computer Sciences, Northeastern University. This fellowship is awarded to top admitted PhD candidates in recognition of their outstanding academic accomplishments.
    • Dissertation Completion Fellowship. A semester-long fellowship awarded to outstanding PhD candidates in their final semester of PhD.
    • Academic Technology Scholar fellowship. This semester-long fellowship is a practicum course and training to help support faculty with integrating and using technology to support teaching and learning

      • Articles

      1. “Meet the 2025 Khoury College award winners. (May 27, 2025)"

    Publications

  • Vis Repligogy: Towards a Culture of Facilitating Replication Studies in Visualization Pedagogy and Research
    • Syeda, U.H., South, L., Raynor, J., Panavas, L., Saffo, D., Morriss, T., Dunne, C., and Borkin, M.A.

    [In Computer Graphics Forum of EuroVis 2024 Education Track. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2312/eved.20241054]

  • Process and Pitfalls of Online Teaching and Learning with Design Study “Lite” Methodology: A Retrospective Analysis
    • Syeda, U.H., Dunne, C., and Borkin, M.A.

    [In Computer Graphics Forum of EuroVis 2023 (Vol. 42, No. 3, pp. 75-86). DOI: 10.1111/cgf.14813]

  • Design Study "Lite" Methodology: Expediting Design Studies and Enabling the Synergy of Visualization Pedagogy and Social Good
    • Syeda, U.H., Murali, P., Roe, L., Berkey, B. and Borkin, M.A.

    [In Proceedings of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 1-13). DOI: 10.1145/3313831.3376829]

  • A State-of-the-Art Survey of Tasks for Tree Design and Evaluation with a Curated Task Dataset
    • Pandey, A., Syeda, U.H., Shah, C., Guerra-Gomez, J.A. and Borkin, M.A.

    [IEEE TVCG (Transactions on Visualization & Computer Graphics)]

  • An Evaluation of Temporal and Categorical Uncertainty on Timelines: A Case Study in Human Activity Recall Visualizations.
    • Potter, V., Ha, L., Syeda, U.H., Stephen, I., and Borkin, M.A.

    [IEEE VIS 2025]

  • Evaluating the Effect of Timeline Shape on Visualization Task Performance
    • Di Bartolomeo, S., Pandey, A., Leventidis, A., Saffo, D., Syeda, U.H., Carstensdottir, E., Seif El-Nasr, M., Borkin, M.A. and Dunne, C.

    [In Proceedings of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 1-12). DOI: 10.1145/3313831.3376237]

  • Visual face scanning and emotion perception analysis between autistic and typically developing children.
    • Syeda, U.H., Zafar, Z., Islam, Z.Z., Tazwar, S.M., Rasna, M.J., Kise, K. and Ahad, M.A.R.

    [UbiComp '17 Proceedings of the 2017 ACM International Joint Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing and Proceedings of the 2017 ACM International Symposium on Wearable Computers (Mental Health: Sensing and Intervention workshop), Pages 844-853, Maui, Hawaii,USA — September 11 - 15, 2017. DOI: 10.1145/3123024.3125618]

  • Towards Identification and Mitigation of Task-Based Challenges in Comparative Visualization Studies
    • Pandey, A., Syeda, U. H., & Borkin, M. (2020).

    [OSF Preprint]

  • Chester Square Park: A Case Study of Visualization for Social Good using Design Study “Lite” Methodology
    • Syeda, U.H., Murali, P. and Borkin, M.A.

    [IEEE VIS Conference, held October 2019 in Vancouver, Canada.]