Doctoral student Landon Dyken placed second in UIC’s Image of Research competition
Doctoral student Landon Dyken placed second in UIC’s Image of Research competition
PhD student Landon Dyken took second place in the moving image category of UIC’s 2025 Image of Research competition for his submission “Accelerating Graph Rendering in the Web.”
The Image of Research is an annual interdisciplinary exhibit competition organized by the Graduate College and University Library to highlight the breadth and diversity of UIC research. Students enrolled in a graduate degree program or professional program are eligible to submit an image that relates to their overall research. This year, the competition received over 140 submissions.
Dyken, who is advised by Assistant Professor Sidharth Kumar, is interested in applying high-performance and machine learning methods for scientific visualization, specifically in accessible web-based environments.
“I chose the topic of scientific visualization for my research because I love the process of rapidly prototyping different techniques, then being able to see how what I’m doing translates to visual output,” Dyken said. “Writing new algorithms to model an application, then immediately seeing the benefits, is incredibly fulfilling.”
Dyken entered the contest after making a video to accompany his published paper, “Accelerating Web-Based Graph Drawing with Bottom-Up GPU Quadtree Construction.” He added the ability to convert images into graphs for fun, and though it would provide a demonstration of how graph drawing works–he used the technology to make a UIC logo at the start of his video.
Dyken expects to complete his doctoral program in 2027. He joined UIC to continue studying under Kumar, with whom he worked with as an undergraduate and master’s student at the University of Alabama, Birmingham. He hopes to continue to develop projects he’s passionate about in a research position after obtaining his PhD.
Winners of the Images of Research competition were honored in a ceremony on April 18 in the UIC library.