Tomas Vancisin

Data Visualization Engineer
Edinburgh Futures Institute
University of Edinburgh

Research Associate in Interactive
Data Visualization
School of Law (PeaceRep)
University of Edinburgh

Research Interests:
Digital Humanities
Information Visualization
Digital Heritage
PeaceTech

ORCID Logo0000-0003-1283-5673

RESEARCH

Peace and Conflict Resolution Evidence Platform (PeaceRep)

School of Law, University of Edinburgh

I am currently working at the University of Edinburgh, focusing on visualization of transition trajectories and the mediation space of peace and transition processes.
Formal peace agreements signed and the levels of estimated conflict-related fatalities per country in the last 12 months.
Scrollytelling visualization showing how women, girls, and gender are taken into consideration in peace agreements around the world.
PeaceHub project focuses on understanding how third-party actors intervene in peace efforts.
Geospatial visualization of local peace agreements from Syria.
Scrollytelling visualization of Russia and China as third party signatories in inter/national peace agreements.

Publications:

Vancisin, T., Wang, J., Henry, N., Schöttler, S., Havens, L., Kauer, T., ... & Bach, B. (2025, November). Visualizing Peace Transitions: Interactive Visualizations to Support Innovation and Adaptive Management in Peace Processes. In VIS 2025-IEEE Visualization and Visual Analytics.
Henry, N., Vancisin, T. (2025). Visualizing Peace and Transition Process Trajectories: Enhancing Decision-Making Through PeaceTech and Iterative Design. In: Schrepp, M. (eds) Design, User Experience, and Usability. HCII 2025. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 15794. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-93221-2_3
Farquhar, A., Henry, N., Beaujouan, J., Wise, L., Hodge, J., Vancisin, T., ... & Epple, T. (2024). Peace Agreements in 2023: Insights from the PA-X Database [PA-X Data Series]. PeaceRep: The Peace and Conflict Resolution Evidence Platform, University of Edinburgh.

Legacies of the Empire

School of History, University of St Andrews

In summer 2023 I worked as a postgraduate research assistant for the Legacies of the Empire Project, exploring how the University of St Andrews benefited from the British colonial past. Using the database I developed during my PhD, I visualized birth locations, career paths, and alumni occupations in the British colonies. In 2025 I revisited the data and in collaboration with the historian Aileen Fyfe, developed an interactive web-based visualization that allows an open-ended exploration of St Andrews colonial connections.
Exploring career paths of St Andrews students travelling to and from the British colonies between 1700 and 1897.
Web-based interactive visualization showing origins and careers of St Andrews students travelling to/from the colonies.

Publications:

Vancisin, T., & Fyfe, A. (2026). Visualising Historical University Records to Explore the Colonial Connections of the Students and Alumni of the University of St Andrews, 1700–1897. History of Education, 1-24.
Vancisin, T. & Fyfe, A. (2025). St Andrews students and the Empire, 1700-1897 : Methods and Limitations. Legacies of Empire working papers, University of St Andrews, pp. 1-10.
Fyfe, A., Robinson, I., Vancisin, T., Leith, S. J. H., & Ylitalo, M. W. (2025). The University of St Andrews and the legacies of Empire, 1700-1900. University of St Andrews. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14975043

PhD Research

School of Computer Science, University of St Andrews

My research is at the intersection of Information Visualization, Digital Humanities, and History. I work with historical student and staff biographical records from the University of St Andrews spanning the period 1579-1897, and I have been focusing on visualizing the transformations these records have gone through in the past century (manual transcription, content expansion, digitization etc.). The aim of this work is to highlight transparency, emphasize people's labor, and provide more critical understanding of such historical collections.
Web-based visualization of the University record transformations 1888 - 2022.
First visualization prototype of the University record transformations 1888 - 2022
Early exploration of student birth locations and college affiliation 1747 - 1897 (Tableau).
Emphasizing differences between current political map of the word and the period during the British empire.
Exploring student paths to other universities in the UK and Europe.

Publications:

Vancisin, T., Clarke, L., Orr, M., & Hinrichs, U. (2025). Provenance Visualization as an Entry Point to the History and Curation of Information Collections. Journal of Visualization and Interaction. 1, 1 (Apr. 2025). DOI:https://doi.org/10.54337/jovi.v1i1.8436. Press.
Vancisin, T., Clarke, L., Orr, M., & Hinrichs, U. (2023). Provenance Visualization: Tracing People, Processes and Practices Through a Data-Driven Approach to Provenance. In 2023 Digital Scholarship in the Humanities. Oxford University Press.
Vancisin, T., Orr, M., & Hinrichs, U. (2020, October). Externalizing Transformations of Historical Documents: Opportunities for Provenance-Driven Visualization. In 2020 IEEE 5th Workshop on Visualization for the Digital Humanities (VIS4DH) (pp. 36-42). IEEE.
Vancisin, T., Orr, M., & Hinrichs, U. (2020). Illuminating Past Labor: Making Transformation Processes of Historical Documents Visible. In Proceedings of Digital Humanities 2020 (DH20).
Vancisin, T., Crawford, A., Orr, M. M., & Hinrichs, U. (2018). From People to Pixels: Visualizing Historical University Records. In Transimage 2018: Proceedings of the 5th Biennial Transdisciplinary Imaging Conference 2018 (pp. 41-57)

About Me

For more information about me and my work, here is my CV.