Interactive Visualization Lab Earns IonE Impact Goal Grant

Department of Computer Science & Engineering’s (CS&E) Professor Dan Keefe is the co-principal investigator on the interdisciplinary team that earned a $100K grant from the The University of Minnesota’s Institute on the Environment (IonE). The project titled, “Natively Intuitive Software and Hardware (NISH): Ojibwe Information Communication Technologies for Growing Data Storytellers Across Tribal Communities,” will invent and study a new paradigm of Natively Intuitive Software and Hardware (NISH) that brings Ojibwe values, including STEAM-focused language revitalization, to data-intensive visualization and environmental decision support.

The project team includes co-PIs Keefe and Diane Willow, a professor in the Department of Art. CS&E PhD candidate Sean Dorr is also a PI-in-training on the project. Additional team members include Gimiwan Dustin Burnette, executive director of Midwest Indigenous Immersion Network, Michael Dockry, associate professor in the Department of Forest Resources, Kathleen Smith, Genwendang Manoomin of the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission, and Racquel Banaszak, a PhD student in the Department of History. 

Current modalities for translating western scientific data and insights, even with the best intentions, do not end up serving tribal communities in the long-term. Environmental justice requires reimagining dominant methods for collecting, discussing, and visualizing data. This project team of Ojibwe and Anishinaabe language warriors, storytellers, artists, foresters, and computer scientists working alongside allied scholars aims to transform how scientists and stakeholder communities learn, communicate, and discover with data and each other using the NISH Medicine Wheel software/hardware system. 

IonE supports dozens of high-impact projects that combine the expertise of UMN faculty, researchers, staff, and community partners – distributing more than $5.5 million in funding to 52 interdisciplinary projects at UMN since launching the grants in 2019. Grant review teams are looking for, among other criteria, projects with “local-to-global” significance: teams working in Minnesota whose work will yield new approaches, insights, and solutions with wide-ranging relevance. This year, the Institute is excited to announce the awarding of $1.13 million to seven new projects, including Keefe’s. Learn more about the latest IonE projects at their website.