The Center for Visual and Decision Informatics (CVDI) is a proposed National Science Foundation Industry/University Cooperative Research Center between the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and Drexel University. As a member of CVDI's Industry Advisory Board, companies will have the opportunity to provide direction to research projects reflecting their needs and access to interdisciplinary academic researchers. Membership benefits include access to faculty, students, infrastructure, and opportunities to network and collaborate with other members to explore joint research ventures. CVDI's goals are to serve as an excellence center for visual and decision informatics research through industry, academic and government partnerships, and to accelerate the creation and transfer of related knowledge and technologies into industry.

1. Center for Visual & Decision Informatics
A Planned National Science Foundation Industry/University Cooperative Research Center
Benefits of Membership
As a member of the Industry Advisory Board of the Center for Visual and Decision Informatics (CVDI), you will
have the opportunity to provide direction to the Center’s research projects that reflects the needs of your
organization and of the potential users of the resulting technologies. You will also have access to the
interdisciplinary knowledge base from academic researchers and engage with other industry advisory board
members to explore potential opportunities.
The following are the highlights of membership benefits:
One-stop access to interdisciplinary university faculty, post-doctoral researchers, graduate students from
the partnering universities;
Ability to chose and fund research projects that collectively benefit multiple organizations;
Access to the state-of-the-art CVDI infrastructure, supercomputing and visualization facilities;
Opportunity to network and collaborate with other industry advisory board members to explore joint
ventures of research collaboration;
Formal periodic project reviews along with continuous interaction and timely access to reports, papers and
intellectual property generated by the Center;
Recruitment opportunities to attract outstanding graduate students.
Background and Technical Scope
The University of Louisiana at Lafayette and Drexel University plan to establish a national research center focused
on Visual & Decision Informatics, as a part of the U.S. National Science Foundation's Industry-University
Cooperative Research Centers program. The goals of the Center are:
To function as a multidisciplinary center of excellence in Visual & Decision Informatics research fostering
long-term collaborative partnerships amongst industry, academe, and government;
To discover, share and leverage synergies of concepts, technologies and resources needed by industry-
relevant Visual & Decision Informatics research in collaboration with CVDI partners;
To educate a diverse body of students in the interdisciplinary field of Visual & Decision Informatics;
To accelerate the creation and transfer of knowledge and technology for Visual & Decision Informatics into
industry and commercial products.
In order to make informed decision and gain insights from complex heterogeneous data, users are typically
involved in a series of analysis and exploratory process. This is true for a computer scientist trying to analyze the
World Wide Web, a biologist or chemist studying a molecular compound for drug discovery or a homeland security
professional analyzing the interdependency between the nation’s critical infrastructures. The focus of the new
research center will be the creation of a set of new Decision-Making Environments (DMEs). DME is a new concept
that leads to a top-down framework for the development of analytic and visual tools. These tools would enable
users to explore and customize information streams in a variety of modalities to gain better insight to information.
A DME consist of the following components: Analytic; Graphics Software; and Perception/Human-Computer
Interfaces. This environment consists of many components combined into a seamless whole. The user can explore
information streams in a variety of modalities, depending on which ones offer better insight. At the same time,
analysis programs run in the background and can be used to supplement the visual displays with analytic
summaries and statistical insights.
CVDI is a collaboration between the University of Louisiana at Lafayette & Drexel University