OSU Science Sunday!

“Lights, Camera, Science: Data Visualization with a Hollywood Twist”

Have you ever found yourself captivated by a video that takes you on a flight through the stars, or watched in awe as DNA gracefully folded within the human body? From YouTube journeys to documentary films and museum exhibits, these visual experiences transport us to realms that elude our direct senses – too distant, too minuscule, or hidden within other structures. The question arises: How do we access these invisible wonders? The answer lies in the combination of data visualization with Hollywood filmmaking techniques. This talk will unveil the magic of cinematic scientific visualization, where the invisible intricacies of the universe come to life before our eyes.

Kalina Borkiewicz has been creating cinematic scientific visualizations since she started working in the Advanced Visualization Lab (AVL) at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2014. She started her visualization career as a programmer, and worked her way up to Director of the AVL, where she worked until early 2024. In her time in the AVL, Kalina contributed visualizations to numerous documentary films, ranging from fulldome to IMAX formats. Currently, Kalina is a PhD student at the University of Utah, studying computer graphics and data visualization. Kalina also volunteers with the ACM SIGGRAPH conference, where in 2023 she served as Director of the Academy Award-qualifying Computer Animation Festival Electronic Theater.