Parikshit Solunke

Researcher · Engineer · solunkeparikshit@gmail.com

I'm a Computer Science Ph.D. student at New York University's Visualization Imaging and Data Analysis Research Center (VIDA), under the mentorship of Dr. Claudio Silva.

I have a strong background in Web Development and Machine Learning. My work lies at the intersection of data science and human computer interaction, aiming to create insightful and user-friendly data visualizations from varied and large-scale datasets. My primary reasearch focus is harnessing visualization and analysis techniques in the domains of Explainable AI (XAI) and Urban Analytics.

Beyond my academic pursuits, I'm a city and transit enthusiast, driven by a deep curiosity about urban ecosystems. You'll often find me exploring cities, uncovering their unique stories and intricacies.

Projects

Mountaineer: Topology-Driven Visual Analytics Tool

Developed "Mountaineer" in collaboration with Capital One; A Topology-Driven Visual Analytics tool designed to facilitate the comparison of Machine Learning Explanations. This paper is currently under review.

  • Conceptualized and designed the user interface.
  • Implemented and developed the tool, applying topological concepts and visualization to compare ML Model Explanations.
  • Designed case studies and conducted interviews with industry experts to evaluate the tool.
Source Code     

GDPFinder: Estimating Neighborhood Well-Being

Developed GDPFinder, a project which focuses on estimating neighborhood well-being from high-resolution satellite imagery using supervised and semi-supervised learning techniques. This paper is currently under review.

  • Fine-tuned a ResNet-50 based architecture within the supervised methodology to predict GDP, educational attainment, and population density at a block level in US cities.
  • Designed a visualization tool to interpret and analyze auto-encoder and clustering results in the semi-supervised methodology.
Source Code     

EuroVis 2021 Committee Network Visualization

A visualization documenting academic relationships between committee members of EuroVis 2021- An annual dataviz conference. Made as a part of my Master's Degree project. Frontend built using HTML, CSS, JavaScript and D3.js. Majority of the academic connections were scraped using the Google Scholar API, and data was cleaned Using pandas.

Source Code      Website

Employment Precarity Visualization

A visualization aiming to showcase the deteriorating quality of employment in the US in the recent past. Made with HTML, CSS, Bootstrap, JavaScript, and D3.js.

Source Code      Website

U.S. Gun Deaths Visualization

A visualization showing the U.S. Gun deaths in 2012. Made with HTML, CSS, Bootstrap, JavaScript, and D3.js.

Source Code      Website

A Day at the Movies

A visualization of the Internet Movie Database (IMDB). Made with R and Shiny.

Source Code      Website

Selective Detective

A VR game developed in Unity(C#) for the state of the art CAVE2™ system, a large-scale virtual-reality environment at UIC’s Electronic Visualization Laboratory.

Source Code      Demo

Education

New York University

Visualization Imaging and Data Analysis Center

Phd in Computer Science

Advised by Dr. Claudio Silva

September 2022 - *

University of Illinois at Chicago

Master of Science
Computer Science

GPA: 3.87

January 2020 - December 2021

Savitribai Phule Pune University, Pune

Bachelor of Engineeering(Computer)

Grade: First Class

August 2014 - July 2018

Certifications

  • Web Design for Everybody: Basics of Web Dev & Coding Specialisation (Coursera)
    Includes the following courses:
    • Introduction to HTML5
    • Introduction to CSS3
    • Advanced styling with Responsive Design
    • Interactivity with JavaScript
  • Tableau Desktop Specialist Certification
  • Data Visualization with D3.js (LinkedIn Learning)
  • React.js Essential Training (LinkedIn Learning)
  • SQL Essential Training (LinkedIn Learning)
  • Python for Data Science Essential Training (LinkedIn Learning)