Colin Ware receives Visualization Lifetime Achievement Award

Monday, October 31, 2022
Colin Ware sits on a chair in front of a three-paneled computer screen with various colored lines on it.

Photo by Perry Smith.

Colin Ware, UNH professor emeritus of computer science and ocean engineering, has been selected for the 2022 Visualization Lifetime Achievement Award by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers’ Visualization and Graphics Technical Committee.  

Ware, the former director of the Data Visualization Research Laboratory at UNH’s Center for Coastal and Ocean Mapping, has been bestowed this award for “shaping the significance of human perception and cognition in modern data visualization through groundbreaking research results and highly influential textbooks,” according to the committee.

During his long career focused on making scientific data easier to see and understand, he has developed important software systems that are widely used for oceanographic applications, and has been instrumental in developing innovative approaches to interactive 3D visualization of large data sets. His work has extended to marine mammal behaviors: he developed 3D maps that showcase the movements and bottom-feeding behavior of humpback whales in the southern Gulf of Maine. Ware has also written two books: “Visual Thinking for Information Design” and “Information Visualization: Perception for Design.”