People
Dr Alma Cantu
- Lecturer Scalable Computing
- Email: alma.cantu@newcastle.ac.uk
- Alma is a Lecture in Data Science in the School of Computing. She specialises in Data Visualization, investigating human perception to improve visualisation of complex data.
Bio
Alma received a PhD in Information Visualization from IMT Atlantique, Brest, France, in 2018. She was funded by Thales DMS France to investigate the use of immersive tools to analyse signal intelligence radar signals. After her PhD, she worked on Human Factors (2028-2019) to evaluate the perceptive advantage of shape-changing surfaces for touchscreen interaction in airliner cockpits at ISEA-Supaero and ENAC, Toulouse, France (engineering schools specialised in aeronautics and space). She then worked for Newcastle University (2019-2022) on the Mobilise-D project investigating visual solutions to explore mobility data.
Research
Alma's research interests are to improve the understanding of user perception to facilitate the acquisition of complex data. It includes investigating human perspectives processes in both on-screen or virtual environments (perception, motion parallax, ecologic design); improving the understanding of diverse user's needs toward visualisation (patient involvement, participatory design); deepening the characterisation and representation of complex data (heterogeneous data, complex task); and evaluating the proposed outcomes (usability texting, quantitative evaluation).
Teaching
Alma is giving Data Visualization lectures in three programmes of Newcastle University: the Data Science MSc, the Data Science Post-graduate Degree Apprenticeship programme, and the Computer Science undergraduate programme.
