Network Visualization
The Network page is an interactive map of the department: people, labs, and research centers, connected by the relationships between them. It is publicly visible — no login required.
What the Graph Shows
Nodes
| Node Type | Appearance |
|---|---|
| Faculty | Blue circle |
| Grad Students | Green circle |
| Postdocs | Circle |
| Staff | Red circle |
| Labs | Purple rectangle |
| Research Centers | Cyan octagon |
Relationships
| Relationship | Appearance | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Advisor | Solid blue arrow | Faculty advises a student |
| Lab Member | Green dashed line | Person is a member of a lab |
| Lab Lead | Amber arrow | Person leads a lab |
| Part of Center | Cyan dotted line | Lab belongs to a research center |
| Directs Center | Cyan arrow | Person directs a research center |
| Affiliated | Purple dashed line | General affiliation |
| Co-authorship | Green line, thicker = more papers | People who have published together |
Controls
The controls above the graph are grouped into three panels (June 2026 layout): Filters, Display, and Actions.
Filters
- Roles — checkboxes to show or hide Faculty, Grad Students, Postdocs, Staff, Labs, and Centers independently. All are on by default.
- Relationships — toggles the structural edges (advisor, lab membership, lab lead, center links, affiliations). On by default.
- Co-authorship — overlays publication collaboration edges on the graph. Off by default; the first time you enable it, the data loads (a small spinner appears), after which the toggle simply shows or hides the overlay. Edge thickness reflects how many publications two people share.
Display
- Color By
- Role (default) — nodes colored by their role, matching the node table above.
- Research Area — nodes colored and shaped by research domain: Cognitive (purple diamond), Neuroscience (cyan triangle), Clinical (amber rounded square), Developmental (pink star), Social (emerald hexagon), Behavioral (red pentagon); gray for unknown.
- Size By
- None (Default) — uniform sizes.
- Citations, H-Index, or Publications — person nodes scale with the chosen metric (the first selection fetches metrics, showing a brief "loading…" note). Labs and centers keep fixed sizes.
- Layout — five arrangements:
- Force-directed (CoSE) (default) — physics-based clustering
- Concentric — rings by graph distance
- Circle, Grid, Tree
Actions
- Reset Layout — recompute the current layout from scratch
- Fit to Screen — center and scale the whole graph to your viewport
Interacting with the Graph
- Hover over a node for details: for people, their name, role, research area, office, program, top research interests, and (when metrics are loaded) h-index, citations, and publication count; for labs and centers, a short description, location, and lab count.
- Drag nodes to rearrange the layout by hand.
- Scroll to zoom in and out; drag the background to pan.
- Click a node to select it (highlighted in amber).
The footer shows the current totals — "N nodes · M relationships" — along with a reminder of these interactions.
Legend
Below the controls, a collapsible legend (open by default) explains what you're seeing:
- Nodes — the color/shape key for the current Color By mode (role colors, or research-area colors and shapes)
- Organizations — lab and center markers (shown when coloring by research area)
- Size — a small-to-large scale, shown only when a Size By metric is active
- Relationships — line-style samples for all seven edge types
Collapse the legend to give the graph more room.
Tips
- To see advising structure clearly, turn off Staff and Centers, keep Relationships on, and use the Tree layout.
- To explore collaboration, switch on Co-authorship and set Size By → Publications — productive collaborators and thick co-author edges stand out immediately.
- Color By → Research Area is the quickest way to see how the department's research domains cluster.
- If the graph drifts off-screen after dragging or filtering, Fit to Screen brings it back.