We are thankful to be welcome on these lands in friendship. The lands we are situated on are covered by the Williams Treaties and are the traditional territory of the Mississaugas, a branch of the greater Anishinaabeg Nation, including Algonquin, Ojibway, Odawa and Pottawatomi. These lands remain home to many Indigenous nations and peoples.

We acknowledge this land out of respect for the Indigenous nations who have cared for Turtle Island, also called North America, from before the arrival of settler peoples until this day. Most importantly, we acknowledge that the history of these lands has been tainted by poor treatment and a lack of friendship with the First Nations who call them home.

This history is something we are all affected by because we are all treaty people in Canada. We all have a shared history to reflect on, and each of us is affected by this history in different ways. Our past defines our present, but if we move forward as friends and allies, then it does not have to define our future.

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Christopher Collins
BSc, MSc, PhD

Professor

(former) Canada Research Chair in Linguistic Information Visualization

Computer Science

Faculty of Science

I lead the Visualization for Information Analysis Lab (vialab), where we focus on creating new interface designs for helping people understand and analyze large collections of data. I also conduct research in human-computer interaction, with a focus on novel user interfaces such as touch, pen, virtual reality, and augmented reality. I also teach primarily in the digital media specialization of our CS undergraduate and graduate programs.

@ChrisNF LinkedIn YouTube vialab

Contact information

Science Building - Room UA4024
North Oshawa
2000 Simcoe Street North
Oshawa, ON L1G 0C5

905.721.8668 ext. 6581

christopher.collins@ontariotechu.ca
http://vialab.ca/

Research topics

Information Visualization
Human-Computer Interaction
Pen+Touch Interface Design
Information Overload
Detecting Emotion in Text
Interactive Information Graphics
Text Analytics
Visual Analytics
Password Security
Data Science

Areas of expertise

Computer Science
Visual Analytics
Human-Computer Interaction
Interaction Design
Data Analytics
Visualization

Background

Dr. Christopher Collins is Professor of Computer Science at Ontario Tech University and an alumnus of the Canada Research Chair program, having held the Chair in Linguistic Information Visualization from 2013-2023. His research focus is interdisciplinary, combining information visualization and human-computer interaction with natural language processing to address the challenges of information management and the problems of information overload. Dr. Collins has published over 80 peer-reviewed contributions have been cited over 4600 times. His work has appeared in top-tier venues such as ACM CHI and IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, and has been awarded honorable mention awards at ACM CHI and IEEE VIS. He has received over $3 million in research funding as the sole PI. The impact of Dr. Collins’ research garnered media attention from outlets including the New York Times and CBS Sunday Morning. He has given invited lectures and keynotes at academic and industry labs in Canada, the US, and Europe. Dr. Collins serves on the Board of Governors of Ontario Tech University, the IEEE VIS Conference Executive Committee and is an Associate Editor of ACM TiiS and IEEE CG&A. He received his PhD in Computer Science from the University of Toronto.

Education

PhD University of Toronto 2010
MSc University of Toronto 2004
BSc (Hons) Memorial University 2001

Courses taught

CSCI 4620 Human-Computer Interaction
CSCI 3090 Computer Graphics & Visualization
CSCI 4210 Information Visualization

Christopher Collins BSc, MSc, PhD