Joel Ferstay
I was a graduate student in the Information Visualization Group in the Department of Computer Science at the University of British Columbia . My main interests lie in the design of software tools that utilize computer graphics and interaction techniques to expose meaningful relationships in data. This design process requires leveraging knowledge of human perceptual and cognitive strengths and limitations to create effective information display systems that not only facilitate meaningful exploration of information, but also avoid misrepresentation of it. I am co-supervised by Dr. Tamara Munzner and Dr. Cydney Nielsen.
Prior to this, I studied computer science at the University of British Columbia, focusing on Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and Graphics.
I also hold a degree in Cell Biology and Genetics from the University of British Columbia.
Publications
Ferstay, J.A., Nielsen, C.B., Munzner, T. (2013) Variant View: Visualizing Sequence Variants in their Gene Context. Proc. IEEE Trans. on Visualization and Computer Graphics (Proc. InfoVis 2013). [Paper Page]
Dawson, J.Q., Schneider, O.S, Ferstay, J., Toker, D., Link, J., Haddad, S, MacLean, K. (2013). It's Alive! Exploring the Design Space of a Gesturing Phone. To Appear Proc. Graphics Interface (GI 2013). [PDF] [demo]
Ferstay, JA , Voll, KD (2011). Application of a Non-Linear Autoassociator to Breast Cancer Diagnosis , Stud Health Technol Inform. 2011;164:269-73. [Web Link]
Projects
(2012) Analysis of Training Set Composition in Boosting for Object Category Recognition CPSC 525: Image Understanding II - Course Project.
(2012) Mobile DEVA: Emotional Display Design for Mobile Devices CPSC 543: Physical User Interface Design - Course Project.
(2012) Robust Movement Policies for Physics-based Characters in 2-D CPSC 522: Artificial Intelligence II - Course Project.
(2011) RelaViz: Graph Visualization of Learned Relations Between Entities CPSC 533: Topics in Computer Graphics - Information Visualization - Course Project.
(2011) EmbedViz - Graph Visualization of Learned Structured Embeddings of Knowledge Bases CPSC 540: Machine Learning and Neural Computation - Course Project.
Teaching Experience
May 27, 2013 - I won a 2013 UBC Department of Computer Science Teaching Assistant Award for teaching excellence.
(Fall 2012) Grad TA, CPSC 310 - Introduction to Software Engineering (Meghan Allen).
(Summer 2012) Grad TA, CPSC 310 - Introduction to Software Engineering (Meghan Allen).
(Winter 2012) Grad TA, CPSC 445 - Algorithms in Bioinformatics (Holger Hoos).
(Fall 2011) Grad TA, CPSC 310 - Introduction to Software Engineering (Neil Ernst).