NYU Tandon - Teaching Assistant (Fall 2025)

CS-GY 6313-B: Information Visualization

    • Date(s): August 2025 - December 2025
    • Subject Material: Graph Types, Deceptive Visualizations, Color Theory, Geovisualization, D3, Vega-Lite, JavaScript
    • Skills: Observable, Vega-Lite, D3, JavaScript, HTML, CSS, Observable Framework, Quarto, Markdown
    • Collaborators:
    • Links: Course WebsiteNotebook Gallery

I was hired by Dr. Claudio Silva as a course assistant for NYU’s CS-GY 6313-B - Information Visualization course. As this was my third time TA-ing for an academic lecture, I was able to transfer many of the skills I learned from both my first and my second TA experiences into this job.

This one is worth separating from my second time with Dr. Qi Sun, as I came to understand that each variation of this course covers very different topics, concepts, and methodologies. Unlike Dr. Qi Sun’s version, which relies mostly on Python, Dr. Silva’s methodology emphasizes using D3 and JavaScript as the primary visualization package. Students were allowed to use other languages such as Python for large-scale data handling, but all assignments, mini-projects, and ultimately their group final presentations were expected to be implemented via JavaScript.

Also different from Dr. Sun’s course version is the fact that I ran recitation labs on a weekly basis in tandem with course lectures. This consists of 1-hour sessions where we cover the programming element of one or more concepts taught in that week’s lecture. This means my responsibilities aggressively expanded into creating weekly exercises and lecture slides for students to follow. Many assignments and lab exercies were implemented through Observable and made public for anyone to follow.

Through this experience, I’ve managed to learn a LOT about different ways to think about how to rapid-prototype exercises and lecture material, through tools such as Quarto. I’ve also gotten deeply acquainted (once again) with web development and how to generate interactive dashboards through both Quarto and Observable Framework. In fact, this portfolio website was generated through Quarto!

NoteCheck out my work!

I’ve gotten pretty used to manipulating Observable for my course needs. A full-blown repository of all labs, exercises, and guides I’ve written for the course are provided here, for anyone to check out!

Responsibilities

  • Prepared Observable notebooks, instructions, and grading guidelines for homework and project materials
  • Managed lab recitations to provide auxiliary code exercises and increase student engagement with course concepts
  • Supervised weekly Office Hours sessions to advise students on programming and project-related questions