The mission of the Center for Data and Visualization Sciences is to partner with faculty, researchers, and students through consultation, instruction, co-curricular programming, and research assistance at various stages of the research data lifecycle.
The Center for Data and Visualization Sciences is located within Duke University Libraries and serves Duke University and Duke University Health System. Our team of consultants and interns offers support in data science, data sources, data management and curation, data visualization, and mapping and GIS (geographic information systems).
Consultations
We provide free short-term consultations to our patrons. CDVS staff members consult through email correspondence, and in-person or virtual meetings. Simply email askdata@duke.edu to ask a question or set up an appointment! We also offer walk-in consulting hours in the Brandaleone Lab for Data and Visualization Services on weekday afternoons, and during the school year our interns often have evening and weekend availability.
To learn more about our consulting model and how we can work together, see our CDVS Consulting Services page. If the needs of your project go beyond what we can provide in a few consultation sessions, we may still be able to provide our expertise within the structure of a Research Partnership or we can connect you with other Duke-based groups.
Instruction
Typically offered toward the beginning and middle of the fall and spring semesters, the Data and Visualization workshop series covers a range of tools and methods for data-driven research. These workshops are free and open to the public. We also provide more customized instruction for a variety of Duke groups including honors courses, graduate classes, and project teams. Customized instruction is available by request (askdata@duke.edu), pending staff member availability and expertise.
Staff
The Center for Data and Visualization Sciences consultants can help with a variety of data projects and related computing problems. Learn more about our areas of expertise below:
Joel Herndon
Director, Center for Data and Visualization SciencesEmail: joel.herndon@duke.edu
Web: https://joelherndon.info
I am the Director of the Center for Data and Visualization Sciences and act as a liaison with other data groups at Duke and beyond. My recent research focuses on the nature of research data management services and costs in research universities. Other recent work considers how universities and research libraries are responding to a growing demand for data science services and training.
Jen Darragh
Research Data Management ConsultantEmail: jennifer.darragh@duke.edu
Expertise: Software (REDCap, Sharepoint, Open Science Framework (OSF), Piktochart), data management workflows, behavioral, social science and health data resources, restricted-use data acquisition, sensitive data management and data security.
I began working in the Center for Data and Visualization Sciences in 2017. My goal is to provide guidance and assistance to Duke researchers from all disciplines in managing their research data. Research data can be anything from spreadsheets, digital surrogates of primary resources, AV files, to compl
Ryan Denniston
Librarian for Public Policy and Political ScienceEmail: ryan.denniston@duke.edu
Expertise: Software (Stata, R, Microsoft Office and VBA programming, NVivo, ArcGIS), social science literature, data analysis, data sources
I currently serve as the subject librarian for public policy and political science and have since 2015. I received my PhD in sociology from Duke University in 2009 and worked part time for both the Center for Data and Visualization Sciences as an associate in research at the Sanford School from 2009-2015. My principal strengths are locating data sources, organization and analysis of data, and locating academic literature in the social sciences.
Drew Keener
Map and Geospatial Data SpecialistEmail: drew.keener@duke.edu
Expertise: Web mapping applications, spatial data analysis, map design, GIS software (ArcGIS Pro and QGIS), Tableau, R.
Sophia Lafferty-Hess
Research Data Management ConsultantEmail: sophia.lafferty.hess@duke.edu
Expertise: Software (Open Science Framework (OSF), Dataverse), data management, data sharing, data curation, digital preservation
I began working in the Center for Data and Visualization Sciences in 2017. I specialize in data management best practices including organizing data, documenting data, citing data, and archiving and sharing data. I have a background working in a social science data archive where I curated data for long-term preservation and reuse. I earned a BA in History and Classical Studies from the University of Arkansas and earned a Master of Science of Information Science and Master of Public Administration from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Eric Monson
Data Visualization AnalystEmail: eric.monson@duke.edu
Zoom: https://duke.zoom.us/my/emonson (by appointment only)
Expertise: Software (Tableau, Python, Adobe Illustrator, Gephi, Git, Matlab, ParaView), broad range of scientific and humanities data and visualization, NoSQL databases, regular expressions, text analysis.
As the Data Visualization Analyst, I help students, faculty and staff with data visualization, organization, and processing for their research. My background is in the experimental sciences, where a PhD in Applied Physics led me to work on fluorescence microscopy, chemical nanosensors, and neuron-glial brain cell signaling. From 2007 until I joined CDVS in 2015, I worked as a Research Scientist here at Duke, collaborating with faculty and graduate students from Math to Computational Biology to Art History, helping them visualize and understand their data. In my current position, I enjoy introducing people to important skills they need but were never trained in, whether that means teaching visual design and communication to Scientists, or helping Humanists incorporate technology into their scholarship.
Lauren Nichols
Data Visualization AnalystEmail: lauren.nichols@duke.edu
Expertise: Data wrangling, data visualization, visual science communication (figures, talks, presentations, photography). Software: R, ArcGIS, QGIS, Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop.
I help students, faculty and staff identify the stories they are trying to tell with their data and harness tools to tell compelling stories through data visualization. Prior to joining CDVS in 2023 I spent thirteen years as a researcher and project manager, using tools of bioinformatics, community ecology, and citizen science to study the ecology, evolution and biodiversity of human environments. As part of this work I facilitated collaborations with museums, researchers, teachers, engineers, data scientists, students, artists, Tribal Nations and city planners. Working on interdisciplinary teams and with a diversity of stakeholders highlighted the importance of effective communication.
McCall Pitcher
Data Visualization AnalystEmail: mccall.pitcher@duke.edu
Expertise: Data manipulation, visualization, and storytelling. Software: R, Excel, Adobe Illustrator.
I support faculty, students, and staff in conceptualizing, building, and presenting effective data visualizations. Prior to joining Duke, I taught R programming and data visualization to graduate students in the George Washington University’s graduate school of public policy, and worked at American Institutes for Research developing graphics for the National Center for Education Statistics and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Helenmary Sheridan
Research Data Management ConsultantEmail: helenmary.sheridan@duke.edu
Expertise: Data management and sharing plans; biomedical and health data; humanities data and digital resources, especially digital image resources; ethical considerations for sharing data and digital collections
I joined CDVS in 2024 as a data management consultant to help faculty, students, and staff manage, preserve, and share their research materials. Before coming to Duke, I was the data services librarian at the University of Pittsburgh Health Sciences Library System and have extensive experience working with data topics across the health disciplines. But I love working with humanities scholars, too: my BA is in art history, and much of my early work focused on the intersection of art, architecture, and geopolitical history as documented in historical image collections.
Economics Department Graduate Assistants
Our economics graduate assistants are current graduate students in the Duke Economics Department, and specialize in questions involving statistical software and econometric analysis.
Iris Chang
InternExpertise: Stata, R, Excel, Python; healthcare and population studies data; data cleaning, analysis, and visualization; econometrics.
I am a first-year M.A. Economics student. I am familiar with applied microeconomics in public policy, sociology, demography, and population studies, including data processing, empirical model building, and analysis. I earned my bachelor degree in Economics and Global Studies from UNC-Chapel Hill.
Veena Shirsath
InternExpertise: Stata, R, Python, spatial mapping, data analysis, econometrics, panel data
I am a second-year M.S. in Economics and Computation student. I have working knowledge of Stata, R, Python and QGIS, and basic knowledge of Tableau. I have worked with socio-economic survey microdata, energy consumption datasets, and spatial data. I majored in Economics in my undergrad.
Linda Zou
InternExpertise: Software (Stata, R, Python), econometrics, time-series analysis, data cleaning and reshaping, data analysis, government and policy data
I am a second-year M.A. Economics student at Duke University. I have working knowledge of Stata and R for data cleaning, analysis, and visualization, and have additional experience with Python for panel data analysis and model building. I have worked with government and policy data. I earned my Bachelor of Social Sciences in Economics from the University of Macau.
Questions? Email askdata@duke.edu and we’ll be happy to help!
