Dan Burger

Posted by coffeyac on Thursday, October 12, 2017 in Blog.

In 2011, Dan Burger had just received his undergraduate degree in computer engineering from Vanderbilt when he was contacted by Vanderbilt University and the South African Astronomical Observatory. They sought him out to assist them in the making of a data-management portal for their robotic telescope operated in South Africa called Kilodegree Extremely Little Telescope (KELT). Once he built the online data visualization portal for KELT, Dan began receiving requests from other individuals who wanted him to create a portal for their projects. It was then that Dan decided enable a platform on which anyone could make an account and upload data to a visualization portal.

Dan then came back to Vanderbilt for his Master’s in computer science, and as part of his Master’s thesis project, he further developed his platform, coined Filtergraph, and he has been working on it full time ever since. In 2014, KELT got a grant from I-Corps, so Dan and his colleagues interviewed 100 people who work in data analysis, including those in the Nashville area as well as people at the New York Times and Wall Street Journal, about data tools and how they use them. With the feedback they received, they got a brand-new server, hired a web-designer, added features, moved everything to a new URL and launched a new version of Filtergraph in March of 2015.

Since then, the platform has pretty much stayed the same, and the team recently signed a deal with the NASA Exoplanet Archive. Most recently, the team has become a part of the Wond’ry. I have had the pleasure to start working with Dan as members of his team through my involvement in the Vanderbilt Center for Autism and Innovation (VCAI). The VCAI is now using Filtergraph to test the visual talents of individuals on the Autism Spectrum. When I asked Dan what he likes most about working with VCAI, Dan didn’t even hesitate before replying, “It helps me apply all the statistical principles that I have learned in creating Filtergraph towards helping people!”.

Alexa Levitt
Student Ambassador