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Sarah Williams

@datasew

Living Data Hub Paper https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02665433.2026.2613119

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What can visualization amplify?

For VISAP’26, Amplification asks us to think about visualization not only as representation, but as a way of making signals, stories, and relations more present. Some data becomes visible, operative, and powerful. Other stories remain quiet, fragmented, obscured, or deliberately ignored.

This year’s call invites works that question what counts as signal, noise, evidence, or visibility — and that explore how visualization can reveal hidden structures, suppressed histories, fragile ecologies, minor gestures, and forms of community knowledge.

Submission deadline: June 30, 2026 AoE

Details: https://visap.net/2026/

#VISAP26 #IEEEVIS #dataart #datavisualization #amplification

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Submissions are now open!

As part of IEEE VIS (@ieeevis), VISAP’26 welcomes papers, pictorials, and artworks exploring this year’s theme: Amplification.

Submission deadline: June 30, 2026 AoE
Submit via PCS.
Visit our webpage for full details and templates: https://visap.net/2026/#submissions

#VISAP26 #IEEEVIS #datavisualization #amplification

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VISAP’26 returns as the arts and design program of IEEE VIS (@ieeevis), bringing together visualization researchers, designers, artists, and practitioners who explore creative and critical approaches to data through art, design, and visualization. As both an exhibition and publication venue, VISAP creates space for experimental practices and interdisciplinary dialogue at the intersections of data, art, and design.

Amplification is the theme of VISAP’26.
How might amplification serve humanity? What does data make louder, and what does it silence?

VISAP’26 invites works that make the quiet legible, the overlooked visible, and the unheard more present — challenging how visualization can amplify voices, relations, histories, ecologies, and forms of knowledge.

We welcome research papers, pictorials, and artworks across all media: interactive visualizations, sculpture, AR/VR/XR, sound, video, writing, digital fabrication, spatial computing, and more.

VISAP’26 will be held in Boston, alongside IEEE VIS (@ieeevis), from November 9–13, 2026.

Submission deadline: June 30, 2026

Details: https://visap.net/2026/

#VISAP26 #IEEEVIS #dataart #datavisualization #amplification

General Chairs
Dario Rodighiero (@dario.rodighiero)
Sarah Williams (@datasew)
Weidi Zhang (@w.e.i.d.i)

Design Chair
Ginevra Terenghi (@ginevraterenghi)

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While preparing for my Fall 2026 course, Strategic Design and Urban Systems, I came across Germaine Halegoua’s Smart Cities from the MIT Press. The book prompted me, as a designer, to reflect on the idea that a smart city should be a social city (p. 67).

Katharine Willis and Alessandro Aurigi’s Digital and Smart Cities (2018) similarly argue that smart city developers often frame cities as socially constructed environments in which technology is embedded in everyday urban life (p. 65). Yet many smart city frameworks reduce people to users or customers rather than citizens and active producers of the city. Even when residents are included in planning processes, they are often imagined primarily as data generators, technology consumers, or sources of urban problems (p. 127).

In this context, “big data” has become a cornerstone of smart city development (p. 114). However, people frequently remain external to these systems rather than integral participants within them. Citizens are expected to interact with the ecosystem, yet they are rarely given meaningful agency to shape it (p. 131). This resonates with Sara Williams, Director of the Civic Data Design Lab at MIT, who noted in Public Data for Public Good (2018) that “big data will not change the world unless it is collected and synthesized into tools that have a public benefit” (p. 156).

Perhaps the challenge is not simply how to make cities smarter, but how to make them more human-centered from the start: cities shaped not only by the logics of capitalism and complex public-private infrastructures, but also by care, participation, culture, and collective well-being. Humanity-centered, smart-from-the-start cities (p. 47) may move beyond technological efficiency toward genuinely improving urban life. In this sense, the smart city becomes not only a technological blueprint, but also a “greenprint” for accommodating increasing urbanization and population growth through more sustainable forms of living (p. 30).

More books and inspiration: https://www.shenghunglee.com/inspiration

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Only possible to tag 20 people! So many more yesterday at @gsapp_aud final review: Soft Infrastructure for Cali-Baja. Thank you to our students and thank you fellow professors. Congratulations for an amazing afternoon, after a fantastic spring term. Good luck UD Class of ‘26 #johannalovechio #geetametha @adrichavezs @lidiaratoi @akemilagro @duttpatel108 #gabrielvergara

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HUAI is excited to announce Sarah Williams as the moderator of Panel 1: Human Level at the 2026 Harvard GSD Urban AI Conference.

As Associate Professor of Technology and Urban Planning at MIT and Director of both the Civic Data Design Lab and the Leventhal Center for Advanced Urbanism, Williams has pioneered what she calls “Data Action”, using computation and design to turn urban data into tools for civic empowerment rather than extraction. Her work consistently asks who benefits from the data systems cities build, and who gets left out.

March 28 | Piper Auditorium, Harvard Graduate School of Design
🌕Tickets in bio!

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✈️ Our team is heading out to San Francisco for the 2026 @theaag Annual Meeting this week! #AAG2026

🗓️ Here’s our session schedule:

3/18/26: Toward problem-driven methods instead of methods-driven problems (2:30pm-3:50pm PT) - @rohitsanatani, LCAU PhD Fellow

03/18/26: Visualizing City Code: Translating the Complexity of Zoning Text into a Publicly Accessible Data Portal (02:30-3:50pm) - @___minwook___, LCAU Research Associate

03/21/26: Perceptions, Placemaking, and Community Change (08:30am-09:50am) - @ashsicle, LCAU Research Associate and @___areti___, LCAU PhD Fellow

Our faculty director, @datasew will also be at AAG 🌉 Hope to see you there!

Photo Credit: Benjamin Voros

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LECTURE_March 3, 2026_11:30am_online and in-person

SARAH WILLIAMS
Associate Professor of Technology and Urban Planning, MIT ; Director, Leventhal Center for Advanced Urbanism, MIT

Data Action: Using Data for a Public Good

Sarah Williams is associate professor of technology and urban planning at MIT, where she directs the Civic Data Design Lab and the
Leventhal Center for Advanced Urbanism. Trained in computation and design, she creates tools and visualizations that make complex urban issues visible to the public, a process she calls Data Action, also the title of her recent MIT Press book. Data Action seeks to
provide guidance for using data toward the benefit of society, learning from the ways we have used data unethically in the past and illustrating ways we can use it more ethically and creatively in the future. In this presentation, Williams will illustrate data action
principles through her diverse research projects spanning topics of Central American migration, popular transit in Africa, ghost cities in China, and translating New York City’s zoning text. She will also show her most recent work on how to use generative Al for civic
engagement.

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This week, we celebrated the start of the semester with an outing and group lunch. Now, our researchers, students, visiting scholars, and staff are back to work for a busy spring!

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Award 🏅 and new paper 📝 alert!

We’re thrilled to share that findings from the Benchmark for NSW project have been published in Smart Cities: “Striking a Pose: DIY Computer Vision Sensor Kit to Measure Public Life Using Pose Estimation–Enhanced Action Recognition Model." (Link in bio)

The project has also been awarded a 2025 Australian Good Design Award in the Design Research category.

Developed by @mit_lcau, @civicdatadesignlab, @unsw, @ides_unsw, and the @transportfornsw Safer Cities Program, the project demonstrates how open-source, privacy-preserving computer vision can improve our understanding of how people use public space, providing data to help designers create inclusive, welcoming spaces for all.

Please help us congratulate: @datasew, @___minwook___, @hannahshumway, @gonzportas, Mariano Ramirez, @nila.rezaei, Zoe Eather, Sandy Burgoyne, @seldoncoventry, @gabycarucci, @sebastian.ives, @kuomaje

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Public Talk on October 15 · From Data to Change + Faculty Talks
Moments from the evening, where the Q&A turned the room into a dialogue, exploring trust in data, responsibility in mapping, and how open data can lead to real action.

From Data to Change is led by HYPHEN4 and directed by Siuneh Arakelian @siunearakelian, Supported by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) through the Embassy of Switzerland in Armenia @swissembassyarmenia and its Swiss Cooperation Office.

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An inspiring evening where local voices met global perspectives.
On October 15, this public talk marked a milestone for From Data to Change, reflecting on what has been achieved and opening space for international dialogue on data, design and civic participation.

The event opened with remarks by Ursula Läubli, Deputy Head of Mission of the Embassy of Switzerland in Armenia and Deputy Regional Director of Swiss Cooperation South Caucasus.

Siuneh Arakelian, Director of From Data to Change, outlined the progress and milestones reached so far.

We were honored to host Sarah Williams (MIT, Civic Data Design Lab) and Dana Cuff (UCLA, cityLAB), who shared their work in civic data, architecture and urban design, highlighting how data and design are being used to reimagine cities around the world.

From Data to Change is led by HYPHEN4 and Supported by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) through the Embassy of Switzerland in Armenia @swissembassyarmenia and its Swiss Cooperation Office. This program is carried out by HYPHEN4 in partnership with @tumocenter , GeoVibe, and the @nuaca__university National University of Architecture and Construction of Armenia (NUACA).

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