SDS Seminar Series – Lydia Lucchesi, University of Texas at Austin

The Fall 2025 SDS Seminar Series continues on September 12th from 2:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. with Dr. Lydia Lucchesi (Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Statistics and Data Sciences, University of Texas at Austin). This event is in-person in the Avaya Room (POB 2.302).    

Title: Visual Documentation for Data Preprocessing in R and Python

Abstract: Data preprocessing is a crucial intermediate stage in many data analyses but is often overlooked in the documentation and dissemination of research. This talk introduces the smallsets R package for building Smallset Timelines, a static and compact visualization for communicating data preprocessing decisions. The Smallset Timeline is composed of small dataset snapshots documenting the sequence of decisions in a preprocessing pipeline. The smallsets R package builds this figure from a user’s R or Python preprocessing script, containing structured comments with snapshot instructions. This talk also presents findings from a focus group study that gathered feedback from prospective smallsets users on the package’s utility and usability. The feedback will be used to inform future software development efforts for smallsets.