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May 5, 2015鈥擶hen computer science major and George F. Baker Scholar Matthew Burdumy (C鈥�15) took Associate Professor Adam Rothman鈥檚 History of the Atlantic World course last fall, he thought he was fulfilling one of his final core requirements before graduation. But what he took away from the class turned out to be much larger.

Burdumy and are the team behind the Trans Atlantic Slave Trade Visualization, a series of three animated heat maps that displays more than 35,000 slaving voyages from 1500 to 1870. 

鈥淥ther maps that represent this data are all static鈥攖hey鈥檙e like snapshots of a particular time in the overall volume of the trade,鈥� explained Rothman. 鈥淯nless you look at several different maps in succession, they don鈥檛 really give you a sense of growth and change over time.鈥�

The lack of such a tool is precisely the reason that Rothman took note when he learned, through an e-mail signature, that Burdumy was majoring in computer science. He offered Burdumy the option to work on the visualization in lieu of one of one of the course鈥檚 final papers.

鈥淲e wanted to make something dynamic,鈥� Burdumy said.

With Rothman鈥檚 guidance, Burdumy applied his skills as a programmer to geolocate data from the 鈥攁 free digital resource that documents more than 35,000 African slave voyages to the Americas鈥攊n order to create the maps. But designing and animating the maps wasn鈥檛 the difficult part, according to Burdumy.

鈥淲hat you see on our website is just finished data,鈥� he explained. 鈥淭he challenge was getting the data to that point.鈥�

While the slave trade database provides a wealth of information, it didn鈥檛 lend itself to the process of geolocation. So Burdumy wrote a script using Python (a programming language) to translate the database鈥檚 place codes into GPS coordinates that could be mapped. The raw translated data then required extensive pruning.

鈥淲e had a lot of false positives鈥攖he program would think that [a data point] was in Australia when it should have been in Brazil,鈥� explained Rothman.

After many meetings and corrections, the project was finished by December 2014, but both Burdumy and Rothman were eager for it to extend beyond the classroom. They launched it through GitHub, a web-hosting and code-sharing platform, and began adding tweaks to make their site user-friendly. The project has now received more than 10,000 page views, thanks, in part, to a good social media buzz.

鈥淚 never knew my history professor had such a good Twitter following,鈥� Burdumy said.

After Rothman announced the project through his own , the visualization was shared around the world, including a retweet from . It鈥檚 also featured on , a free information and resource-sharing site for teachers at every level.

While the project is now a resource for teachers everywhere, it was also a true learning experience for Burdumy.

鈥淲ith Professor Rothman, I had an expert I had to bounce things off of and meet with, and it was the first time I had that type of experience. It鈥檚 something I think I鈥檒l see in the future,鈥� he said.

After he graduates this month, Burdumy will embark on a two-year position as a , where he鈥檒l support a startup organization and continue to enhance his portfolio.

And at Georgetown, Rothman will continue not only to use the visualization in his own classroom, but also to encourage students to think outside the box.

鈥淚t might inspire other students to do similar kinds of projects. I think students would be surprised at how flexible faculty can be if they鈥檙e presented with a really interesting idea that comes from students themselves,鈥� he said.  鈥淎nd faculty should capitalize on the range of talent and skill that our students possess.鈥�

Burdumy, who had never before taken on such a task, agrees. 鈥淭his was the first time that I developed a project that was outside of what I really knew. I think a lot of Georgetown students couldn鈥檛 do something like this without being able to replace some of the academic work,鈥� he said. 鈥淏ut I got way more engaged with and excited about the class as a result.鈥�

Related Information

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