Ilya Boyandin

PhD in Computer Science, University of Fribourg, 2013

Thesis title

Visualization of Temporal Origin-Destination Data

Supervised by

Enrico Bertini and Denis Lalanne

Summary

Carried out an in-depth study of temporal origin-destination data which can represent movement of people, energy, material, etc. between locations in geographic space. Developed Flowstrates, a novel approach for visualizing and exploring temporal origin-destination data. Carried out a qualitative user study comparing animated and small-multiple representations of changes in flow maps.

MSc Computer Science, St. Petersburg State University, 2003

Thesis title

Statistical Query Transformations for Question Answering in the Web

Supervised by

Igor Nekrestyanov

Summary

Developed an improvement for a state-of-the-art machine learning approach transforming natural language questions into search engine queries achieving a better quality of question answering.

Staff Software Engineer, Maps and Data Visualization , Foursquare

July 2021 - present

• Technical leadership, architecture and development of Foursquare Studio, a complex web-based visualization platform. Mentoring a team of 10+ engineers.
• Implementing geospatial visualization features including 3D animated trip layers, flow layers for mobility visualization, time scale synchronization for multi-dataset animations, swipe mode, editable rich text map annotations, JSON config editor, draggable legend, and map scale widget.
• Contributed to the design and development of the Foursquare Map SDK, enabling integration of complex geospatial visualizations across web apps and Jupyter notebooks.
• Architecture and implementation of SQL notebooks with map visualizations of query results. LLM model integration for SQL generation.
• Developed the Paris Olympics Places app showcasing various APIs and Map SDK features.

Founder , GeoVisually

November 2020 - present | Zurich

• Interactive maps and geographic data visualization consultancy.
• Architecture and development of MapCanv, a collaborative GeoJSON editor with highly efficient real-time messaging and CRDT conflict resolution.
• Architecture and development of Flowmap City, a web-based interactive analysis tool used by cities, transport and mobility providers for understanding travel demand.
• Developed the Cobalt Supply Chain and Mining in Democratic Republic of the Congo apps for the NGO Resource Matters.

Founding Engineer , Unfolded

January 2021 - May 2021 | San Francisco (remote)

• Helped build Unfolded Studio, the next generation geospatial analytics platform. The company Unfolded was later acquired by Foursquare.

Staff Software Engineer, Front End and Data Visualization Lead , Teralytics

February 2015 - December 2020 | Zurich

• Technical and strategic leadership, platform architecture, and mentoring a team of developers.
• Designed and developed exploratory data visualization tools for the analysis of people mobility in cities and countries around the world.
• Designed and developed interactive dashboards and data visualizations for real-time transportation network monitoring, incident analysis, and transportation planning in Singapore.
• Devised a system architecture for scalable OD-data visualization to support interactive data analysis across billions of rows.
• Published Flowmap.gl, an open-source library for drawing flow lines representing movement on geographic maps in WebGL.
• Developed FlowmapBlue, an open-source tool for geographic flow map visualization from spreadsheets published in Google Sheets.
• Developed a series of interactive maps showing the effect the lock-down had on mobility, published in La Repubblica, Forbes, Daily Mail, Bild, and Osnabruecker Zeitung.

Data Visualization Engineer , Interactive Things

June 2013 - January 2015 | Zurich

• Developed numerous interactive visualizations for Neue Zuercher Zeitung, including geographic visualizations about Switzerland, Interactive timeline of WWI, and pieces on unemployment and medical care.
• Developed an interactive visualization of the trade of the world's countries with Africa.
• Developed a visualization of research expertise for Zurich University of Applied Sciences.
• Developed Public Value Atlas with the University of St. Gallen.
• Developed an exploratory data analysis tool for Swiss National Science Foundation related to research proposals and activities.

PhD Student, Assistant , University of Fribourg

April 2009 - May 2013

• Developed JFlowMap, an experimental tool for the visualization of spatial interactions.
• Developed web-based visualizations of AidData, financial aid given to developing countries.
• Contributed to the BirdEye visualization library developed at the UN Centre for Advanced Visual Analytics.
• Assisted in courses on Web technologies and Functional programming: tutoring, occasional lectures, preparing materials, and building supporting websites and utilities.
• Tutored workshops on programming and computer graphics for students and school children.

Senior Software Engineer, Technical Team Lead, IT Department , University of Applied Sciences FH Joanneum

March 2007 - April 2009 | Graz

• Technical and strategic leadership, platform architecture, mentoring a team of developers.
• Developed web applications used by students, lecturers, and employees of the university for online administration.
• Maintained the web and database server infrastructure for online administration.
• Designed and developed a web application for collaborative data collection and consolidation to provide a statistical overview of study- and research-relevant indicators.

Software Engineer/Research Assistant, Dept of Information Design , University of Applied Sciences FH Joanneum

September 2005 - March 2007 | Graz

• Designed and developed CGVis, a visualization tool facilitating hierarchical clustering, zooming, and animation for exploration of multidimensional datasets.
• Designed and developed standalone and web versions of a proteomic data classification tool implementing a cancer diagnosis method based on mass-spectrometry data with multi-step feature reduction and SVM classification.
• Participated in the development of a presentation management tool for university information screens. Developed the visual layout editor and schedule editor.
• Improved an algorithm detecting behavior type of a user looking at a web page based on real-time eye-tracking data.

Software Engineer , Ecofinance Finanzsoftware & Consulting GmbH

June 2004 - August 2005 | Graz

• Participated in development of a web-based treasury system for Deutsche Bahn and Commerzbank.
• Implemented Java infrastructure and XSLT stylesheets for runtime generation of front-end UI code from XML sources.
• Evaluated and optimized performance of XSL transformations.
• Implemented support for long running jobs on the server side of the system.
• Developed context-sensitive help and help authoring infrastructure based on DocBook.

Software Engineer , Elbrus MCST (by contract with Sun Microsystems)

August 2003 - May 2004 | St. Petersburg

• Worked in Sun's Java Swing UI library maintenance team. Fixed bugs and implemented enhancements in button classes including JButton, JRadioButton, and JCheckBox.

Software Engineer , Aloha

January 2001 - July 2003 | St. Petersburg

• Designed and developed a web-based e-commerce system with user authentication, order tracking, credit card processing, back office, inventory, and statistical reports. Developed the whole system from scratch and supported/customized it over time.

Web Developer , ALife

March 2000 - January 2001 | St. Petersburg

• Participated in development of a system of intelligent agents capable of chatting to website visitors in natural language and promoting products. Implemented a dynamic web interface for the subsystem that controlled chats and let operators intervene.

Teacher , Anichkov Lyceum

September 1998 - April 2000 | St. Petersburg

• Taught school children programming.