Professor Georges Grinstein is at the IEEE 2007 Visualization Conference in Sacramento (Oct. 27-Nov. 1) where he is co-chairing the Second Visual Analytics Science and Technology International Contest. He is also running a live contest there on bioterrorism and co-chairing a panel on the contest. http://conferences.computer.org/vast/vast2007/

Visual Analytics is the science of analytical reasoning supported by highly interactive visual interfaces. People use visual analytics tools and techniques to synthesize information into knowledge; derive insight from massive, dynamic, and often conflicting data; detect the expected and discover the unexpected; provide timely, defensible, and understandable assessments; and communicate assessments effectively for action. The issues stimulating this body of research provide a grand challenge in science: turning information overload into the opportunity of the decade.

Visual analytics requires interdisciplinary science, going beyond traditional scientific and information visualization to include statistics, mathematics, knowledge representation, management and discovery technologies, cognitive and perceptual sciences, decision sciences, and many more.