A Natural Language Processing (NLP) Approach to Data Exploration

Melanie is a senior research scientist focusing on interactive visual data analysis. Her research explores techniques and tools to help people analyze data more effectively. Before joining Tableau, Melanie was an associate professor in visualization at the University of Victoria. She earned her Ph.D. in computer science from Simon Fraser University and her B.Sc. from the University of British Columbia. Melanie is an active member of the visualization research community. She is associate editor of IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications and has served as papers co-chair for the IEEE Information Visualization and ACM Interactive Tabletops and Surfaces conferences.

Vidya is a research scientist at Tableau and works in the Palo Alto office. Previously, she worked as a principal research scientist at the Nokia Research Center for seven years. She earned her doctorate in computer graphics in 2005 at Northwestern University. Her research interests lie at the intersection of natural language processing (NLP) and computer graphics, in the area of content retargeting and iconography.