2021–present
Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh, PA
Research Assistant, HCII, Data Interaction Group and Axle Lab
Frank Elavsky
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PhD'ing at CMU HCII and consulting for accessibilty R&D.
Research Area
To break down barriers that exclude people from data work and data interfaces, I research methods that improve greater adoption of accessibility practices, engineer tools and systems that improve inclusive practitioner work and outcomes, and contribute to global technology standards bodies. I critically examine ways that sociotechnical systems exclude people with disabilities while also building and making. My research seeks to intervene in the technological spaces where practitioners produce inaccessible data visualizations, interfaces, and experiences in order to include and empower everyone with information.
Positions
2024–present
Adobe
(Remote)
Visualization and Accessibility R&D (contract)
2024
Highsoft
Vik, Norway
Accessibility R&D (contract/intern), Highcharts Accessibility
2022–2023
Apple
Pittsburgh, PA
Data Interaction R&D (contract/intern), AX Visualization Team
2021–2023
Fizz Studio
Pittsburgh, PA
Senior Research Scientist, Accessibility Standards, Industry Consulting
2018–2021
Visa
Foster City, CA
Staff Design Engineer, Data Experience Team, Visa Chart Components
2017–2018
Northwestern University
Evanston, IL
Data Visualization Specialist, Research Computing Services
2016–2017
Acumen LLC
Burlingame, CA
Data Visualization and Policy Analyst, Data Visualization Team
2015
Clemson University
Clemson, SC
Undergraduate Research Assistant, National Science Foundation REU Site
Education
2021–Present
Ph.D. in Human-Computer Interaction, Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh, PA
Advised by Dominik Moritz and Patrick Carrington.
Thesis: (In progress).
Member of the Data Interaction Group and AXLE Lab.
2011–2016
B.S. in Computer Information Systems, Trinity Lutheran College
Everett, WA
GPA: 3.88 / 4.0, Magna Cum Laude
Advanced coursework on data visualization, video game physics, digital humanities archives, and software interfaces.
2011–2016
B.A. in Theology and Philosophy, Trinity Lutheran College
Everett, WA
GPA: 3.88 / 4.0, Magna Cum Laude
Advanced coursework on post-colonialism, trauma theory, feminist semiotics, secularism, and the philosophy of play.
Publications [Interactive Version]
Conference
C4
Exploring The Affordances of Game-Aware Streaming to Support Blind and Low Vision Viewers: A Design Probe Study
Noor Hammad, Frank Elavsky, Sanika Moharana, Jessie Chen, Seyoung Lee, Patrick Carrington, Dominik Moritz, Jessica Hammer, Erik Harpstead.
ASSETS, 2024.
C3
Counterpoint: Orchestrating Large-Scale Custom Animated Visualizations
C2
Data Navigator: An accessibility-centered data navigation toolkit
C1
How accessible is my visualization? Evaluating visualization accessibility with Chartability
Book Chapter
B2
A New Vision for Data Viz Accessibility
Emily Barone, Frank Elavsky.
Nightingale, 2023.
B1
The Right Tools for the Job: Learning and Building for Data Visualization and Accessibility
Frank Elavsky.
Do No Harm Guide: Centering Accessibility in Data Visualization, 2022.
Micro-paper
M2
Option-Driven Design: Context, Tradeoffs, and Considerations for Accessibility
Frank Elavsky.
arXiv, 2023.
M1
The Micro-Paper: Towards cheaper, citable research ideas and conversations
Frank Elavsky.
arXiv, 2023.
Poster
P2
Comparing Correspondences: Robert Southey and Willa Cather
Gabriel Hankins, Frank Elavsky.
DH 17, 2017.
P1
Digital Wrangling and Visualization for Correspondence Projects
Frank Elavsky, Gabriel Hankins, Jill Gemmill.
XSEDE 15, 2015.
Patents
Notable Awards
2024–2025
Access and Inclusion for Blind and Low Vision People in Data Products, Services, and Tools
Adobe
In partnership with internal individuals and teams at Adobe, we were awarded an internal grant for our work to make Adobe's data visualization tooling and analytical products and services more accessible for blind and low vision data workers.
2024–2026
Accessible Interactive Data Visualizations
Chan Zuckerberg Initiative
In partnership with Quansight Labs, I am listed as key personnel on a 2-year CZI EOSS 6 grant for making the Bokeh python visualization library more accessible. I am the leading consultant, advisor, auditor, and architect for the accessibility efforts of this grant.
2023
Impactful Community Leadership, shortlist
Information is Beautiful Awards
I was recognized on the shortlist (of 3 out of 20k members) for my work with the Data Visualization Society's community, fostering a space for folks to learn and connect regarding accessibility.
2022–2024
Outstanding Review
ACM CHI
I was given awards for my outstanding review contributions to CHI 2022, 2023, and 2024 (a hat trick!).
2019
Image of the Week
NASA
My Masses in the Stellar Graveyard interactive data experience won NASA's High Energy Astrophysics Archive Research Center (HEASARC) Image of the Week Award.
2018
Kantar's IIB Longlist
Kantar's Information is Beautiful Awards
My Masses in the Stellar Graveyard interactive data experience won Kantar's longlist.
2018
Kantar's IIB Longlist
Kantar's Information is Beautiful Awards
My Quantifying Career Hot Streaks interactive data experience won Kantar's longlist.
2017
Featured Graphic in the 2017 Nobel Lectureship on Physics
Barry Barish's lecture prominently featured my figure on electromagnetic and gravitational wave detections of compact stellar objects.
2011–2016
Dean's Circle Scholarship
Trinity Lutheran College
Recurring, 60% scholarship awarded to a select group of students who participate in a conversation with the Academic Dean on a semesterly graduate-level humanities topic.
2011–2016
Presidential Honors
Trinity Lutheran College
Scholarship awarded to the top 10% performing students each year.
2013–2014
Organizing For Mission Cohort
ELCA
Scholarship and training expenses provided for students, scholars, and practitioners involved in organizing efforts in their communities.
2013
Community Improvement Grant
Forum for Theological Exploration
Grant awarded to active community organizers with promising projects.
Mentoring
2024
Industry Professional Mentoring
Carnegie Mellon UniversityI mentored an industry professional who is working on making an infinite canvas tool, tldraw, more accessible. "Creative support tools" (CSTs) are notoriously hard to make accessible as they are largely visual-only. We explored the problem space, ideated, and developed prototypes.
Mentored:
- Taha Hassan
2022,2024
Undergraduate Mentoring
Carnegie Mellon UniversitySemester-long mentorships on the following topics: accessibility, machine-learning design, user interface design, software engineering, graph theory, assistive technology research.
Mentored:
- Ihita Mandal
- Chieri Nnadozie
- Iman Ouzzan
2022–2023
Graduate Student Mentoring
Carnegie Mellon UniversityI mentored a graduate student during their research-focused Master's in CS at CMU, exploring the space of machine learning descriptions of visualizations.
Mentored:
- Ihita Mandal
2018
Undergraduate Mentoring
Northwestern UniversityI mentored an undergraduate student on two projects for the PI Sera Young, cleaning and visualizing refugee resettlement data as well as visualizing a world map of Young's Household Water Insecurity Experiences (HWISE) sites.
Mentored:
- Jun Hwa Lee (now at Meta)
2017–2018
Graduate Student Mentoring
Northwestern UniversityTaught graduate students in earth and astrophysical sciences professional, data-intensive skills for two summers. I personally worked with and mentored one PhD student fellow on projects related to their research.
Mentored:
- Boris Rösler (2017 and 2018 PhD Fellow)
Talks, Courses, Workshops [Interactive Version]
Knowledge, Prediction, and Hope
What is the Future for Cities Podcast
Workshop on Web Frameworks
Carnegie Mellon University
Software Structures of Assistive Technologies
Carnegie Mellon University
Accessibility and Play
ASSETS, St. John's, Canada
Data Visualization and Accessibility
IEEE VIS Workshop on Accessible Data Visualization
(State of the Art talk) IEEE VIS Workshop on Accessible Data Visualization
Data Visualization Society, Reader's Club
Carnegie Mellon University
Highsoft HQ, Vik i Sogn, Norway
AccessU
T-Mobile Accessibility Summit
Carnegie Mellon University
Accessibility Tableau User Group
Graphic Hunters
Northwestern University
NACIS
AccessFest
Visualizing Knowledge, Aalto University
Maryland Institute College of Art
DataViz DC Meetup
IRE-NICAR
Northwestern University
Observable HQ
IEEE Vis, VisInPractice
University of Cincinnati
University of Washington
Linkedin Learning
PolicyViz
Carnegie Mellon University
Data Viz Today
Accessibility Camp Bay Area
Tableau World
NoVA UX Meetup
IRE-NICAR
CIDE, Mexico City
Maryland Institute College of Art
Knowbility
Disability and Data Equity
We All Count, Talking Data Equity
National Institutes of Health (NIH), Common Fund
Human-centered Machine Learning
Carnegie Mellon University
Carnegie Mellon University
Carnegie Mellon University
Advanced Data Visualization with D3
Northwestern University
Northwestern University
Northwestern University
Northwestern University
Northwestern University
Northwestern University
Data Navigator
IEEE VIS, Melbourne, Australia
Apple
Carnegie Mellon University
Philosophy of Design
Visualizing Knowledge, Aalto University
Accessible Research
arXiv Accessibility Forum
University of Washington
Chartability
Carnegie Mellon University
Carnegie Mellon University
EuroVis, Rome, Italy
Inclusive Data Experiences
Columbia University, Barnard College
Jupyter Project
DSxD
Fireside Chat: Charts in Context
Data Visualization Society
Fireside Chat: Accessibility in Data Visualization
Data Visualization Society
Data Science Best Practices: Accessibility
UC Berkeley BIDS
Are Your Data Visualizations Excluding People?
Outlier
Advanced Data Visualization and Accessibility on the Web
AccessU
Visualizations for Multi-Dimensional Data
Focus Summer School, Northwestern University
Focus Summer School, Northwestern University
High-Density Model Visualization
Data Viz Today
Introduction to JavaScript
Northwestern University
Introduction to Web Technology
Northwestern University
Introduction to Visualization
Northwestern University
Northwestern University
How to Make Scientific Figures
Northwestern University
Northwestern University
Service
- Associate Editor (2024 - Present), Journal of Interaction and Visualization (JoVI). Honored to be the first student editor!
- Peer Reviewer (2022 - Present), Reviewed a running total of 18 papers across ACM CHI, UIST, IEEE VIS, TAccess, and EuroVis. Current reviews:submissions ratio of 6:1.
- W3C Invited Expert (2021 - Present), Accessible Internet Rich Applications (ARIA) Working Group, a working group for web accessibility standards.
- Co-founder and organizer (2020 - Present), DataVizA11y, a worldwide group of practitioners focused on accessibility in visualization.
- Student Volunteer (2023), ACM Designing Interactive Systems (DIS) conference in Pittsburgh, PA.
- Volunteer Consultant (2020), City of San Francisco's Data Team, helped with a project to make COVID-19 dashboards more accessible.
- Community organizer (2012 - 2016), various, organizing at the local and institutional level for housing, safety, and student rights issues.
References
Dominik Moritz
Assistant Professor, Human-Computer Interaction Institute
Carnegie Mellon University
Patrick Carrington
Assistant Professor, Human-Computer Interaction Institute
Carnegie Mellon University
Chris DeMartini
Senior Director, Data Experience Team
Visa
Gabriel Hankins
Assistant Professor of English
Clemson University
Vetria Byrd
Assistant Professor of Computer Graphics Technology
Purdue University