Data Science Students Turn Data Into Stories, Earn Honors in Visualization Challenge

 
Two College of Information Science students earned top honors in the latest Data Visualization Challenge hosted by University of Arizona Libraries, transforming complex datasets into compelling visual stories about political borders and Tucson’s changing climate.

Leo Saginala and Vanishree Venkatachalapathy, both Master of Science in Data Science students, placed first and third, respectively, in the Graduate/Professional Student category. Both developed their projects independently while taking INFO 526: Data Visualization and Analysis with InfoSci Lecturer Anna Leach.

“I recommended the competition to the class as an opportunity to apply the key concepts and skills we were learning,” Leach says. “Leo and Vanishree took up the challenge! Their final work is impressive—they made intentional design decisions for the interactive visualizations to tell data stories and communicate an issue.”

Lines of Intent

Saginala, who is from Patna, Bihar, India, won first place for Lines of Intent: Every Border Was Someone’s Decision, an interactive visualization tracing changes to political borders across Central Europe, the Middle East and post-colonial Africa.

The project animates 18 moments between 1914 and 2003 when war, empire and diplomacy reshaped national boundaries. Saginala built the visualization in R using historical boundary data, rendering the borders with a hand-drawn, pencil-like appearance.

“My project, Line of Intent, began with a simple but important idea: borders are not natural or permanent facts. They were drawn by people, often in particular rooms and at specific moments in history, and they can be redrawn,” Saginala says.

For Saginala, the lines themselves tell only part of the story. Behind them are negotiations, conflicts, colonial decisions, political agreements, displacement and changes in national identity.

“Through the project, I wanted viewers to slow down and consider who drew each line, why it was drawn and what happened to the borders on either side of it,” he says. “The title, Line of Intent, reflects the idea that every border carries a history and a human intention behind it.”

Leach says Saginala’s restraint in deciding what to show was an important part of the visualization’s success: “Leo built a visualization to tell a story, carefully selecting enough information to communicate a clear message and not complicate the visualization.”

Saginala researched, designed and built the project independently, drawing on what he learned in Leach’s course about visual storytelling, design and communicating complex information.

“I was surprised, grateful and very excited to learn that the project had received the award,” he says. “Because I worked independently on every part of it, the recognition feels especially meaningful.”
 

Tucson’s Vanishing Winters

Venkatachalapathy, who is from Hyderabad, Telangana, India, took third place for Tucson’s Vanishing Winters: Watch the Blues Fade and Reds Take Over, which uses four decades of temperature data to reveal how Tucson’s cool season is changing.

The idea emerged from her experience living in Tucson and a search for data that could tell a timely, locally relevant story.

“I wanted people to look at it and think, ‘Oh, I didn’t know that.’ Then I came across NASA’s temperature records for Tucson and started digging,” Venkatachalapathy says. “Tucson’s winters turned out to be that story. Everyone knows desert summers are hot. Fewer people notice that the cool season is quietly changing, too. Once I measured each month against its own 41-year baseline, the pattern was hard to ignore.”

Using NASA POWER agroclimatology data from 1984 through 2024, Venkatachalapathy compared each month’s temperatures against that month’s 41-year baseline. Her visualization incorporates all 492 month-year observations into a generative particle field, using color and movement to make the long-term pattern visible as cooler blues increasingly give way to warmer reds.

The particle field is the element of the project she is most proud of. Rather than relying on an animation library, Venkatachalapathy used a fractional Brownian motion algorithm to give the particles fluid, organic movement while keeping each tied to its underlying data.

“Fractional Brownian motion is a way of generating smooth, natural-looking randomness,” she says. “Instead of particles jittering in straight lines, it works like gentle gusts of wind that nudge each particle in a slightly different direction every frame, while an invisible pull keeps drawing it back home to its cell. That’s what makes the motion feel organic rather than mechanical. I wanted the data to feel alive, but still stay anchored to the numbers underneath.”

Leach says those choices helped Venkatachalapathy turn the dataset into an experience viewers could explore for themselves: “Vanishree considered color and movement and the agency of the user to focus on specific time frames.”

Venkatachalapathy spent nearly a month developing the project.

“My first feeling was that the hard work paid off,” she says. “The project took me almost a month to build, so seeing it recognized made me really happy. More than anything, it gave me confidence and motivation—proof that the time I put in was worth it, and a push to keep going.”
  

Taking Data Science Beyond the Classroom

For both students, the challenge offered an opportunity to combine skills developed across their Master’s in Data Science coursework and apply them to questions that matter.

“The amount of learning is honestly hard to put into words. Every semester opens up something new,” Venkatachalapathy says. “It’s challenging, and I like that. What I appreciate most is how many opportunities there are to explore beyond the classroom, like this challenge. You’re never short of ways to test what you’re learning on real problems.”

Saginala has similarly found himself drawn to the intersection of analytical methods, technology and storytelling.

“Projects such as Line of Intent have helped me see that data visualization is not simply about presenting information clearly,” he says. “It can also help people ask deeper questions, recognize patterns and understand familiar subjects from a different perspective. I have especially enjoyed applying technical skills to projects that have a broader historical or social meaning.”

After graduating in 2027, Saginala hopes to work in data science, analytics or visualization, particularly in roles that combine data and storytelling to illuminate complex issues. Venkatachalapathy plans to pursue data scientist opportunities in the life sciences, where she hopes to bring together analytical and visual storytelling skills.

For both students, the Data Visualization Challenge provided an opportunity to take what they were learning in the Master of Science in Data Science program and push it further, using data not simply to analyze complex questions, but also to help others see patterns and understand their significance.
  

Explore more projects from 2026 Data Visualization Challenge winners, or learn about the top-ranked Master of Science in Data Science, offered on campus and online.