Four University of South Carolina graduate students are the winners of University Libraries’ 2025 Graduate Student Data Visualization Awards.
Masters candidates Hatice Akkurt and Gerald Byrne and Ph.D. candidates John Hartsell and Pighla Arerzo Sediqi all received equal recognition for the excellence of their work using visual techniques to display their research data.
“This year’s Graduate Student Data Visualization Award competition once again highlighted the exceptional research being done by our masters and Ph.D. students here at the University of South Carolina,” said Data Visualization Librarian Glenn Bunton. “The University Libraries is thrilled to be able to support their activities through this award.”
Akkurt, a master’s candidate in International Hospitality and Tourism Management in the College of Hospitality, Retail and Sports Management, was recognized for the interactive dashboard she created using hotel market data to show various aspects of the Charlotte-area hotel marketplace.
Byrne, a Public Administration master’s candidate in the College of Arts and Sciences, earned recognition for “The Visualization of South Carolina’s Imports and Exports,” an interactive dashboard that applies maps, bar charts and grouped bar charts to facilitate exploration of South Carolina’s activity in global economic markets.
Hartsell, a Ph.D. candidate in Epidemiology in the Arnold School of Public Health, was honored for using choropleth map data visualization technique in his presentation, “Examining the Geographical Distribution of Local Smoke-Free Ordinance Coverage and Secondhand Smoke-Attributable Mortality in South Carolina.”
Sediqi, a Ph.D. candidate in Education Administration in the College of Education, was honored for mapping and graphing employer engagement with University of South Carolina students in an interactive dashboard whose visuals adapt in accordance with users’ specific interests.
First launched in 2023, the Data Visualization Awards were created to highlight innovative research by USC graduate students, celebrate excellence in using data visualization to enhance knowledge explanation and comprehension, and promote data literacy and effective data visualization creation and presentation. This year’s award recipients cited the recognition as an encouragement to further develop their research visualization skills.
“I'm grateful for the opportunity to share my work and participate in the 2025 Graduate Student Data Visualization Awards competition,” said Hartsell. “I want to extend my gratitude to the University Libraries, Digital Research Services, and everyone else involved with promoting and showcasing student research around the University.
“Seeing my passion for data visualization recognized at this level is a reminder to myself to continue with my efforts in the field,” said Akkurt.
University Libraries offers data visualization support through its digital research services program, which assists USC faculty and students with technology needs in all stages of the research process. Other digital research services include research data management, AI/data science support and scholarly communications.