Robert holds a master’s degree in Computer Science from WashU. He earned his bachelor’s degree in Software Engineering from Makerere University in Uganda. As a software engineer, Robert has experience in managing industry software development projects where he developed various mobile and web-based applications before embarking on his graduate studies. He is currently pursuing his Ph.D. in Computational and Data Sciences and is interested in the application of machine learning and artificial intelligence to solve problems. He serves on the board of the Harambee Center, a non-profit organization that is working to improve education and healthcare access for young people in rural Eastern Africa.
Robert Kasumba Presents Research Findings at IEEE Vis 2022 Conference
November 2022
Robert Kasumba, a first-year McDonnell Scholar, co-authored a short paper on the use of COVID-19 Visualizations on Twitter. Robert presented his findings at the VisComm Workshop during the IEEE Vis 2022 Conference that was held in Oklahoma City on October 16-21, 2022. The paper titled “User Engagement with COVID-19 Visualizations on Twitter” studied how public health experts in the US used various forms of visualizations to communicate COVID-19-related information and how this stimulated user engagement with the posts. They found that users were more likely to engage with COVID-19 tweets that included visualizations compared to those that used only textual information. Health experts used several types of visualizations to communicate different aspects of the pandemic such as line charts for trends, and color maps for state-to-state comparisons. Robert worked with Saugat Pandey (presenter) and Professor Alvitta Ottley from the Visual Data Analysis Group at Washington University in St. Louis. You can find the paper here, https://osf.io/es6ua/
Robert Kasumba is a 2022 Cohort Scholar pursuing a PhD in Computational & Data Sciences (PhD) at McKelvey School of Engineering. He is a graduate of McDonnell Academy partner institution Makerere University.