Staff Profile

Newcastle University
School of Computing
People
Staff Profile

Dr Alma Cantu

Background

I am a Lecturer in Data Science, specialising in Information Visualization, in the scalable group (School of Computing). Before joining the scalable group, I held post-doctoral positions at Newcastle University and ISAE-Supaero (Toulouse, France). I completed my PhD in "Immersive Visualisation for Signal Intelligence" between Thales DMS France and IMT Atlantique (Brest, France). I worked with various use-cases, including signal intelligence, airline cockpit interaction, and digital mobility data.

Research

My main interests are to tackle the exploration of complex data, in massive amounts, by relying on user perceptive biases. It includes Information Visualization, Human Perception, Multivariate Data, and Heterogeneous Data.

Please do not hesitate to contact me if you are interested in one of these topics. I am always looking for collaborations and motivated students.

Projects

Mobilise-D - Developing visualization metaphors to support the analysis of mobility data to monitor diseases like Parkinson’s or multiple sclerosis. This study led to the design of a tool enabling biomechanical experts to correlate multivariate heterogeneous data.

Airtius - Evaluating the advantages of shape-changing surfaces to overcome the weakness of touchscreen interaction in airline cockpits. This work allowed me to set up an evaluation containing turbulence simulation, eye-tracker, electromyogram, workload generation, and interaction with shape-changing surfaces.

HeloVis - Providing visualisation solutions for Signal Intelligence and Electronic Warfare. This work allowed me to develop solutions to facilitate the exploration of naval and spatial electromagnetic data.

Reviewing

Journals

Frontiers in Virtual Reality
International Journal of Aerospace Psychology

Conferences

IEEE Visualization Conference (IEEE VIS)
IEEE Conference on Virtual Reality (IEEE VR)
Francophone Conference on Human-Computer Interaction (IHM)

Publications

Gozzi Z, Peysakhovich V, Cantu A, Causse M. Behavioral and Physiological Assessment of a Virtual Reality Version of the MATB-II Task. In: International Joint Conference on Computer Vision, Imaging and Computer Graphics Theory and Applications (VISIGRAPP). 2022, Virtual: Science and Technology Publications, Lda.
Cantu A, Vinot JL, Letondal C, Pauchet S, Causse M. Does folding improve the usability of interactive surfaces in future airliner cockpits? An evaluation under turbulent conditions and varying cognitive load. In: IHM '21: IHM '21 - 32e Conférence Francophone sur l'Interaction Homme-Machine. 2021, Virtual Event France: ACM.
Cantu A, Vinot JL, Letondal C, Pauchet P, Causse M. Human factors evaluation of tangible devices for airplane cockpit. In: International Conference on Cognitive Aircraft Systems (ICCAS). 2021, Virtual: EAAP.
Cantu A, Duval T, Grisvard O, Coppin G. Expert evaluation of the usability of HeloVis: a 3D Immersive Helical Visualization for SIGINT Analysis. In: International Conference on Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality (EuroVR). 2019, Tallinn, Estonia: Springer.
Cantu A, Duval T, Grisvard O, Coppin G. HeloVis: A helical visualization for SIGINT analysis using 3D immersion. In: IEEE Pacific Visualization Symposium (PacificVis). 2018, Kobe, Japan: IEEE.
Cantu A, Grisvard O, Duval T, Coppin G. Identifying the Relationships Between the Visualization Context and Representation Components to Enable Recommendations for Designing New Visualizations. In: 21st International Conference Information Visualisation (IV). 2017, London: IEEE.
Cantu A, Grisvard O, Duval T. Visual Analytics for Electronic Intelligence: Challenges and Opportunities. In: 21st International Conference Information Visualisation (IV). 2017, London: IEEE.