Independent Study (open)

An Independent Study is a graded module that allows students to work intensively and independently on a topic, learning how to work independently. Before registering for this module, students need the supervision approval of a professor at IfI; there is no entitlement to supervision of an Independent Study. More information:

• Independent Study in the Master track, incl. Flyer
• Independent Study in the Bachelor track, incl. Flyer

We are looking for motivated students to conduct a graded Independent Study in the Interactive Visual Data Analysis Group, as part of the UZH studies.

The project should cover the areas of visual analytics, interactive data science, and/or interactive machine learning. Our overall goal is to develop approaches for characterization, design, and evaluation of interactive visual interfaces to combine the strengths of both humans and algorithms in interactive machine learning and data science applications.

Our primary research focus is at the intersection between Information Visualization, Visual Analytics, Human-Computer Interaction, and Machine Learning. We follow a human-centered approach to data science, in order to foster the involvement of humans in the data analysis process with interactive visual interfaces. You will help to combine different strengths of humans and machines in an iterative and incremental data analysis process in order to tackle remaining data science challenges along the following lines:

• Examples for data-oriented challenges are heterogeneous data, dirty data, uncertain data, or unlabeled data.
• Important model-oriented challenges include data preprocessing, model building, model quality assessment, or model explanation.
• Particularly interesting user-oriented challenges are different degrees of user expertise, users’ personalization intents, and understanding and supporting user preferences with respect to data and tasks.

For more information about Prof. Bernard's research context, see juergen-bernard.de

• Knowledge or interest in one or more of the following: information visualization, visual analytics, machine learning, data mining, information retrieval, or related data science fields.
• For programmers: profound skills in programming (Python, Java), ideally with a full-stack background
• For user study supporters: skills in experiment designs and in conducting user studies
• Interest to work on applied research questions in a collaborative research environment

Applications should include:

• Short informal motivation statement
• CV, certificates of study/educational background
• Exposition of prior data visualization experience
• Your expectations to the Independent Study and skills you want to learn