John T. Langton : Research

John T. Langton

Michtom School of Computer Science
Volen Center for Complex Systems
Brandeis University, Waltham, MA, 02254
psyc (at) cs.brandeis.edu
May 2008

Research Interests:

information visualization, human computer interaction, data mining, collaboration, distributed systems, cyber security

Education:

Ph.D. (information visualization) Advisor: Timothy J. Hickey	Brandeis University	05/2008
M.A. (human computer interaction)	Brandeis University	01/2004
BA (computer science)	Brandeis University	12/2000

Employment:

5/2008 - present	President and Principal Scientist, VisiTrend, Waltham, MA
2/2004 - 5/2008	Associate Scientist, Charles River Analytics, Cambridge, MA
5/2000 - 9/2006	Technology Consultant and Software Engineer, Boston Trade International, Hudson, MA

Research:

Dissertation: "Simulation, Visualization, and Data Mining: A Methodology for Interactive Scientific Discovery"

My dissertation focused on methods for knowledge discovery through interactive visualization and analysis of massive, multidimensional databases. I specifically proposed a methodology for investigating analytically intractable models by simulating them using parameter space exploration, visualizing the results, and interacting with the visualization to perform analysis. A major emphasis was on interaction techniques, i.e. using a visualization as an interface to allow users to interact with both data and analysis algorithms and factor their domain expertise, interest, and intent into investigations. These methods are implemented in a software tool called NDVis which is used in computational neuroscience classes at Emory University.

GREWP (Groupware Research in Education and the Workforce Project):

Participated in early design and development of GREWPEdit, a same time / different place groupware IDE. This included researching distributed persistence and routing algorithms for shared editors (e.g. Microsoft Groove). Designed and ran HCI experiment investigating collaborative learning during paired programming with GREWP. This study focused on human computer interaction and interface design.

Teaching:

2003	Instructor: Introduction to Computer Science TYP program at Brandeis University, Waltham, MA
2002	Graduate Instructor: Introduction to Artificial Intelligence Brandeis University, Waltham, MA

Publications:

Visualization for cyber security command and control, John T. Langton, Paul R. Havig, Brent Newey. In Cyber Security, Situation Management, and Impact Assessment II; and Visual Analytics for Homeland Defense and Security II, edited by William J. Tolone, William Ribarsky, Proceedings of SPIE, Volume 7709, 2010.

Evaluation of current visualization tools for cyber security, John T. Langton, Brent Newey. In Cyber Security, Situation Management, and Impact Assessment II; and Visual Analytics for Homeland Defense and Security II, edited by William J. Tolone, William Ribarsky, Proceedings of SPIE, Volume 7709, 2010.

Visualization and Interactive Exploration of Large, Multidimensional Data Sets, John T. Langton, Elizabeth Gifford, and Timothy J. Hickey. Chapter in Applications of Computational Intelligence in Biology, Volume 122, Pages 231-255. Springer, 2008.

Applications of multi-objective evolutionary algorithms to air operations mission planning, Brad Rosenberg, Marc Richards, John T. Langton, Sofya Tenenbaum, and Daniel W. Stouch. In Proceedings of the 2008 Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference (GECCO'08), July 2008.

An evolutionary algorithm technique for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance plan optimization, John T. Langton, Joseph A. Caroli, and Brad Rosenberg. In Proceedings of SPIE, 6964:696407, 2008.

NeuroVis: combining dimensional stacking and pixelization to visually explore, analyze, and mine multidimensional multivariate data, John T. Langton, Astrid A. Prinz, and Timothy J. Hickey. In Proceedings of SPIE: Visualization and Data Analysis (VDA 2007), Volume 6495, Pages 64950H-1 to 64950H-12. 2007.

Combining Pixelization and Dimensional Stacking, John T. Langton, Astrid A. Prinz, and Timothy J. Hickey. In Proceedings of the 2nd International Symposium on Visual Computing (ISVC 2006), Volume 4292 Part 2 of Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Pages 617-626. Springer, 2006.

Leveraging layout with dimensional stacking and pixelization to facilitate feature discovery and directed queries, John T. Langton, Astrid A. Prinz, David K. Wittenberg, and Timothy J. Hickey. In Pierre P. Levy, Benedicte Le Grand, Francois Poulet, Michel Soto, Laszlo Darago, Laurent Toubiana, and Jean-Francois Vibert, editors, Pixelization Paradigm First Visual Information Expert Workshop, (VIEW 2006), Volume 4370 of LNCS, Pages 77-91. Springer Verlag, 2006.

Enhancing CS Programming Lab Courses Using Collaborative Editors, Timothy J. Hickey, John T. Langton, Ken Granville, Richard Alterman. The Journal of Computing Sciences in Colleges, 20(3), Pages 157-167. 2005.

Integrating tools and resources: a case study in building educational groupware for collaborative programming, John T. Langton, Timothy J. Hickey, Richard Alterman. The Journal of Computing Sciences in Colleges, 19(5), Pages 140-153. 2004.

Presentations:

Probabilistic Complex Event Processing (PCEP): advanced correlation of network security events using Bayesian networks, John T. Langton. Invited talk at Boston Secureworld Expo, March, 2008.

NeuroVis: Exploring interaction techniques by combining dimensional stacking and pixelization to visualize multidimensional multivariate data, John T. Langton, Astrid A. Prinz, and Timothy J. Hickey. Poster presentation at InfoVis 2006.

Dimension-stacking of Visualization of Conductance Space, John T. Langton, David K. Wittenberg, Adam L. Taylor, Astrid Prinz, Eve Marder and Timothy J. Hickey. Workshop presentation at Organization for Computational Neurosciences Conference 2005

The Locus of Mind, John T Langton. Presented at NNEPA 2003, Keene, NH

TA Groupware, Timothy J. Hickey, Richard Alterman, John T. Langton. Tech. Rep. CS-02-222, CS Dept., 2002, Poster presentation at SIGCSE 2002