about me

hi! my name is derya

pronounced in english: dairy-ya
pronouns in english: she/her/hers

₊⊹ currently searching for assistant professor positions (Vis/HCI) in the EU ⊹₊

thinking about…

• missing data
• participatory methods
• hanging out with my cat Fig

present

✏ KTH Royal Institute of Technology

✉ akbaba at kth dot se

📖 i like books

💾 a list of lists about data vis

let’s work together!

research is fun when it is done together ✶⋆.˚
I am open to: collaborating, chit-chatting, and supervising topics on:
 ⊹ ࣪˖ participatory VIS & HC(A)I
⋆˚࿔ data physicalization
  ✮⋆˙input visualizations
₊⊹ visualization theory
 ⋆𖦹⭒ feminist vis
and other topics at the intersection of tech x society more broadly

past

⋆｡ PhD, Computing (Media & Information Technology) @ Linköping Univeristy, VID lab, WASP Funded, 2025

☼ Masters, Computing @ U. of Utah, VDL lab, 2022

☃ BSc, Industrial & Labor Relations @ Cornell, 2013

recent work

Designing Vibes in a Science Museum: from @Science to @🤗
Derya Akbaba, Daniela Paz Moyano Dávila, Måns Gezelius, Yin He, Miriah Meyer
Proceedings of the 2026 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference (DIS '26) (to appear), 2026


Thinking Inside the Box: Considerations for Putting Data Physicalization Workshops in a Box
Derya Akbaba, Camilla Svensson, Claudia Torelli, Martin Callmeryd, Miriah Meyer
Computer Graphics Forum (EuroVis), 2026
preprint

Reflections on Traceability for Visualization Research
Jen Rogers, Derya Akbaba, James Scott-Brown, Alexander Lex, Miriah Meyer
Computer Graphics Forum (EuroVis), 2026
preprint

news

Apr 2026 :: Spain

Attending CHI with two workshop papers, The Value of Visualization and Craft, Reflection + Complexity

Feb 2026 :: France

Will give a talk at SIGCHI Paris Chapter and run a workshop "Making the Visible Invisible" at IASEAI

Nov 2025 :: the Netherlands, Austria, Sweden

Lots of fun news to share for this autumn! I'll be sharing data vis methods at Mapping as a Social Science Method at Maatricht University. Then off to IEEE VIS conf -- come to the Input Vis Workshop and listen to our Best Paper Honorable Mention talk! Finally, I am starting a new role at KTH Royal Institute as a member of the Co-liberative Computing research group.