Well-Known Graphics Editor at the New York Times To Speak at ESU During Student Research and Scholarly Activities Symposium

Posted by: admin on March 28, 2013, No Comments

Kevin Quealy, who has helped create some of The New York Times’ best-known graphics, will present Storytelling with Data: Information Graphics at the New York Times at East Stroudsburg University of Pennsylvania (ESU) at 7 p.m., April 4, 2013, in the Abeloff Center for the Performing Arts.  This event will conclude a day-long symposium in the Warren E. ’55 and Sandra Hoeffner Science and Technology Center showcasing student research and scholarly activities. The symposium and Quealy’s presentation are part of a week of special programs and activities celebrating ESU student and faculty success that will culminate in the inauguration of Marcia G. Welsh, Ph.D., as the university’s thirteenth president on Saturday, April 6.  The symposium and Quealy’s presentation are open to the general public at no cost.

Quealy is a member of the New York Times graphics department, a 25-person multi-generational and multi-disciplinary team of “visual journalists” that includes experienced editors, cartographers, as well as reporters, graphics and data specialists from various fields. The team’s task is to explain, illustrate and contextualize the news for the print and online editions of The New York Times. Kevin has helped create some of the Times’ best known graphics, including visualizations of the 2010 congressional elections, the interactive “national budget puzzle,” “Usain Bolt vs. 116 years of Olympic sprinters,” and many others. The department has won many national and international awards, including the National Design Award for Communication Design.

Quealy is also an adjunct professor in New York University’s Science, Health and Environmental Reporting Program and co-teaches the new data journalism class. A graphics editor at The New York Times since 2008, he has also worked at the Philadelphia Inquirer and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch newspapers, and was a Peace Corps volunteer in South Africa from 2004 to 2006, working as a teacher and in curriculum implementation. He has a master’s degree from the Missouri School of Journalism and a B.A. in physics from Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minn.

The symposium in the Warren E. ’55 and Sandra Hoeffner Science and Technology Center showcasing student research and scholarly activities is a prelude to Quealy’s speech. According to Patricia Kennedy, J.D., Ph.D., associate professor of communication studies and event organizer, there will be more than 50 student presentations of work at the symposium involving nearly 100 ESU undergraduate and graduate student authors.

In addition to poster sessions from 10 a.m. to noon and 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. in the building’s lobby, attendees will be able to hear about a variety of student research activities “in the works” at a 1 p.m. session in Sci. Tech. classroom 135, “Research Mash Up: Scholarly Activities on Campus Explained in Three Minutes or Less.” Also at 1 p.m. in the Niedbala Auditorium of the Science and Technology Center, the ESU Graduate College’s Spring 2013 Thesis-of-Note Awards will also be announced: “Bend in the River: Institutionalization of Modern Environmentalism in United States Government Structures and Saving the Delaware from Dam-Nation, 1955-1975” by Benjamin L. Cohen and “Landscape Genetics and Disease Seroprevalence of Coyotes (Canis Latrans) of the Eastern United States” by Thomas Rounsville.

From 2-3 p.m. in the Niedbala Auditorium of the Science and Technology Center, ESU Vice Provost Marilyn Wells, Ph.D., will moderate a panel discussion of a faculty-student research collaboration titled: Options for student research and student-faculty research at ESU: What’s available and how does it work?  Panelists will include ESU professors Howard (Sandy) Whidden, Ph.D., and Jane Huffman, Ph.D., as well as students who worked on grant-supported research with them.

From 3-4 p.m. in the Niedbala Auditorium, professional photographer and graphic designer, Lorena Roman Piccione, will present some of her recent work, intended to challenge assumptions about what is fashionable and how notions of sustainability can be expanded into all areas of student research, scholarship, career potential and life. Piccione points out that “Even those familiar with the phrase ‘reduce, reuse, recycle’ in sustainable practices, may not have considered reusing trash as fashionable.” The program will offer attendees a colorful opportunity to rethink, reinvent and renew possibilities.

For more information about Quealy and the Student Research and Scholarly Activities Symposium, please contact Dr. Kennedy at 570-422-3136 or by email at pkennedy@esu.edu.