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Staff Profile

Dr Sara Fernstad

Senior Lecturer in Data Science, Director of Postgraduate Research

  • Telephone: +44 (0) 191 208 2708
  • Address: School of Computing,
    Newcastle University,
    Urban Sciences Building,
    1 Science Square,
    Newcastle-upon-tyne,
    NE4 5TG
Background


I am the Director of Postgraduate Research, a Senior Lecturer in Data Science with fifteen years' experience of Visualization research, and a Fellow of the Alan Turing Institute. Before joining the School of Computing at Newcastle University, I was a Senior Lecturer in Computer Science at University of Northumbria at Newcastle. Prior to that I held post-doctoral research positions at Cambridge University, UK, and at Unilever R&D, UK. I completed my PhD on algorithmically guided visualization for analysis of high dimensional and heterogeneous data in 2011, at Norrköping Visualization Centre-C, Linköping University in Sweden.

My main interests are in research challenges relating to visualization of incomplete (missing), uncertain, high dimensional and/or heterogeneous data; visualization of biomedical and ‘omics-type’ data; visualization in data profiling; and human centred visualization design.

Google Scholar: Click here.

Research

My main research interests are in the field of Data Visualization and I am particularly interested in challenges relating to high dimensional data, heterogeneous data, and uncertainty and structural missingness in data. These challenges are all highly relevant in a range of application domains, not least in biomedical domains and life sciences, which are becoming more and more data driven. My work on interactive visual dimensionality reduction in collaboration with microbiologists has been applied in industry and academia, leading to eight joint publications and funding of two PhD studentships.

From a methodological point of view, a large part of my research has been centred around the use of 'interestingness' measures to support users in visual and interactive exploration, extraction and identification of patterns of relevance within complex data. At the heart of this approach lies the human who need to understand and make decisions based on complex data, and to address and define their analytical needs through the utilisation of user centred design approaches. 

My research to date can broadly be separated into four major themes, which often cross each other’s paths: Visualization of Missing Data, Visual Exploration of Microbial Populations, Interactive Visual Exploration of High Dimensional Data, and Visualization of Heterogeneous Data. As an overarching theme to this lies the concept of 'interestingness'. How do we bring out the most interesting and useful information in a dataset? How do we define what is interesting? How can we use 'interestingness' to support knowledge discovery and gaining of insights in the most useful way?

Current PhD supervision:

  • Interactive visualization of temporal multi-omic data. Hugh Garner. EPSRC
  • Visualization for investigation of data quality in health data. Sarah Hamed H Alsufyani
  • Improving the usability of complex biological networks through interestingness measures and interactive visualization. Hanin Saeed A Alzahrani.
  • Multi-omics Data Visualization for Paediatric Cancer Patients. Lama Alsmmahi

Past PhD supervision:

  • Hierarchical Visualization of High Dimensional Data: Interactive Exploration of 'Omics Type Data. Alexander Macquisten. BBSRC & Unilever R&D (2017-2022)
  • Information Visualization Approach to Form Balanced Groups. Kenan Koc (2018-2022)


I am Co-Investigator of the following funded projects:


Google scholar profile


Invited talks:

  • To See What Isn't There - Visualisation of Missing Data. University of Bristol Data Science Seminar (online). June 2021. 
  • To See What Isn't There - Visualisation of Missing Data. Norrkoping Visualization Centre - C, Linkoping University, Sweden. April 2019.
  • Designing Interactive Visual Analytics Tools for Exploration of Microbial Communities. Centre for Bioinformatics, Hamburg University, Germany. Jan 2018.
  • To See What Isn't There - Visualisation of Missing Data. Unilever R&D Colworth, UK. Oct 2017.
  • To See What Isn't There - Visualisation of Missing Data. School of Computing Science, University of Glasgow, UK. April 2017.
  • To See What Isn't There - Visualisation of Missing Data. School of Computing Science, University of Leeds, UK. Feb 2015.
  • Designing Visual Analytics Tools for Exploration of Microbial Ecology. Oxford e-Research Centre, University of Oxford, UK. May 2014.


Teaching

2021/2022


2022/2023


2023/2024


Publications