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The Faculty of Arts and Science invited undergraduate, graduate, and professional students to submit original interactive works of data visualization for the Dean’s Student Data Visualization Prize. It was an opportunity for students to showcase their data visualization skills and research, and this year’s submissions ranged from charts to maps and 3-D models.  Thank you to all of the students who submitted works! 

This year’s winner was Adam Sigesmund, a fourth-year undergraduate student majoring in Statistics and the Co-Chair for Queen’s Sports Analytics Organization. He used National Hockey League (NHL) data to create an interactive map to demonstrate where and when teams travel during the season.  Adam points out that he was inspired to create the map that tracks road trips for all seven Canadian teams in the NHL last season in Tableau to study discrepancies in the amount of travel required by the teams: 

“Although each team must play the same number of games in cities other than their own, some teams must travel more than others over the course of a full season. It is common knowledge in sports that travelling limits the athletic capabilities of players, which obviously influences the games. Since travelling is not distributed equally amongst teams in the league, it is important to study the factors responsible for these discrepancies… Interacting with the map sheds light on two factors influencing travel: geography and the NHL schedule itself.” 

The judges chose this interactive visualization because it demonstrated understanding of the underlining data and the ability to use this knowledge effectively to create an original data visualization that is easy to understand. Dean Barbara Crow further explains, “Adam’s use of NHL data to create an interactive map showing where and when teams travel during the season is a novel idea and the results are fascinating for sports fans as well as researchers.”   

Congratulations Adam!