Gustavo Moreira defended his PhD dissertation, “Towards an Ecosystem for Visual Analytics Systems Authoring: Insights from the Urban Domain,” at the University of Illinois Chicago on October 12, 2026.

The dissertation proposes an ecosystem of tools and frameworks that grow in technical and social integration while keeping technique in the service of people. The Urban Toolkit introduces a grammar-powered framework for urban data integration; Curio adds a collaborative, dataflow-driven approach; Urbanite proposes a framework for human-AI collaboration and declarative design; and Vitral zooms out to the design process itself, organizing scattered knowledge in a canvas for retrospective analysis. Together, they equip domain experts with the means for accessible and rigorous analytics.

His committee: Fabio Miranda (chair and advisor), G. Elisabeta Marai and Michael Papka of UIC, Remco Chang of Tufts University and Ross Maciejewski of Arizona State University. Photo: Gustavo presenting an Urban Toolkit workflow on the Arcade display wall during his defense. Electronic Visualization Laboratory.