Personal profile

Biography

Dr Sarah Goodwin is a Senior Lecturer within Monash's Embodied Visualisation research group. She is passionate about helping to harness data more effectively for a sustainable future. Using human-centric approaches her  research seeks to create visual solutions to enable the exploration and communication of complex, multi-dimensional and geospatial data sets.  

Sarah's research looks to drive innovative, practical and feasible solutions which can have immediate impact. Her recent projects include: 

- investigating information overload in energy network control rooms: presenting recommendations for future control room designs (with Australian Energy Market Operator / AEMO) 

- developing novel visual exploration tools to explore smart energy grid data including Uplift - an immersive casual collaboration tool,  Timetables - an embodied spatial-temporal view and Embodied Provenance - Active Proxy Dashboards - interactive dashboards using 3D buildings, and dashboards and large screen displays for microgrid visualisations.

- visualising disadvantage in Australia through analysing media and parliamentary discussions: Australia's Discourse Explorer (with the Paul Ramsay Foundation)

- developing the openly available visual eye tracking analysis software: Gazealytics (VETA and Gazealytics publications)  

- visualising cancer prevalance and communicating geostatistical model uncertainty: Australian Cancer Atlas (with Cancer Council Queensland and Queensland University of Technology)

- creating MultiViz (Urban diversity) to enable the visual exploration of multiple variables on one map for social scientists  

and novel immersive and interactive visualisations including Tiltmap ,  DataDancing and Data as Delight.

Sarah is Director of Engagement for Monash's Human-Centred Computing Department, co-Director of Research for the Monash Grid Innovation Hub. She is a member of the Monash Energy Institute and Monash Data Futures Institute and was previously the deputy IT for Sustainable Energy theme lead for Monash Faculty of Information Technology. 

Sarah has over 20 years experience in the field of geospatial analysis and information visualisation in professional and academic roles; as a GIS technician, geo-data analyst, consultant and an academic researcher for some of the leading research centres for spatial analysis and visualisation around the world including the giCentre at City, University of London, UK; the g2Lab at HafenCity University, Hamburg, Germany,  Geospatial Science Department at RMIT University, Melbourne and now with the Immersive Analytics Lab / Embodied Visualisation group, Monash University.

She is co-General Chair for IEEE VIS 2023, bringing the largest international visualisation and visual analytic conference to Australia for the first time. She runs two international workshop series on 'Energy Data Visualisation' (EnergyVis) and 'Urban Data Visualisation' (CityVisand has been on various program committees including IEEE InfoVis and IEEE PacificVis.

Sarah has taught data visualisation to over 1000 students per year and supervises a long list of PhD, Masters and Honours students. 

Research interests

  • Infovis Design Studies and Methodologies
  • Creativity Techniques and Workshops
  • Geographical Information Visualisation
  • Spatial Temporal Visual Analytics
  • Human Computer Interaction
  • Multidimensional Data Visualisation
  • Geodemographics
  • Uncertainty Visualisation
  • Energy, Smart and Micro Grid Visualisation
  • Movement and Flow Data Visualisation
  • City and Urban Data Visualisation

Monash teaching commitment

Lecturer

S1/S2 2020, S1/S2 2021, S1/S2 2023 (Lecturer / CE): FIT5147 Data Exploration and Visualisation  (postgraduate elective, manadatory for advanced Data Science pathway)

S1/S2 2019; S2 2018: FIT5125/FIT5143/FIT4005 Research Methods in Information Technology (All hons/masters/phd research component students)

 

Previously at RMIT University:

S1 2018 ONPS2335: The Professional Scientist (UG3), RMIT ONPS2334 Science Skills & Communication (UG1), and GEOM2334 Geospatial Science & Communication Skills (UG1). All Core subjects. 

S2 2017 GEOM2069 Cartography and Visualisation (RMIT) - Elective postgraduate

S1 2017 GEOM2079 Cartography 2 (RMIT) - Core UG2

Expertise related to UN Sustainable Development Goals

In 2015, UN member states agreed to 17 global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all. This person’s work contributes towards the following SDG(s):

  • SDG 3 - Good Health and Well-being
  • SDG 4 - Quality Education
  • SDG 7 - Affordable and Clean Energy
  • SDG 11 - Sustainable Cities and Communities
  • SDG 13 - Climate Action

Education/Academic qualification

Geographical Information Science, Doctor of Philosophy, City University London

Award Date: 14 Sept 2015

Geographical Information Systems, Master of Science, City University London

Award Date: 22 Nov 2007

Geography, Bachelor of Science (Honours), University of Manchester

Award Date: 1 Jul 2003

Research area keywords

  • Visualization
  • Analytics and big data
  • Energy
  • Computer Graphics
  • Smart grid
  • HCI
  • Smart Cities
  • Geostatistics
  • GIS
  • Spatial temporal statistics
  • Spatial cognition
  • Creativity

Collaborations and top research areas from the last five years

Recent external collaboration on country/territory level. Dive into details by clicking on the dots or