Monday Evening & Tuesday Evening Keynotes
Monday Evening Keynote: Confessions of a SAS Dummy
Chris Hemedinger, Director of SAS User Engagement, SAS
Keynote Summary
Ever wonder what happens when you learn SAS by writing the book on it — literally? Join Chris Hemedinger,
the original “SAS Dummy,” as he shares his unconventional journey from curious coder to author, advocate, and everyday SAS user.
In this candid and entertaining keynote, Chris will reveal:
- How writing about SAS helped him master it — and how teaching others became his best learning tool
- The real-world tasks he tackles with SAS every day (some serious, some just for fun)
- The quirky, unexpected ways SAS shows up in his life — from productivity hacks to pet projects
Chris Hemedinger is the Director of SAS User Engagement. His talented team looks after SAS online communities, SAS user groups, developer experience and GitHub, tech newsletters, expert webinars and tutorials. Chris is a recovering software developer who helped build popular SAS products such as SAS Enterprise Guide. Inexplicably, Chris is still coasting on the limited fame he earned as an author of SAS For Dummies.
Tuesday Evening Keynote: Communicating Data Distributions Using Perceptual Dimensions of Color
Dr. Cynthia A. Brewer, Pennsylvania State University
Keynote Summary
ColorBrewer.org has been around for more than 20 years as a popular but simple website. It grew from my cartography research and atlas production collaborations,
where I use the perceptual dimensions of color to match with the conceptual structures in geographic data. Making good matches between data types and color designs,
which we dubbed Sequential, Diverging, and Qualitative schemes, lets readers understand distributions and patterns in statistical and categorical spatial data.
The real prompt for creating the website, though, was fatigue with people asking me to tell them the CMYK or RGB specifications for a map on page x in book y.
I now see the map schemes in public-facing media and as options in varied geographic information systems and programming tools these days. At a basic level,
the schemes use hue for categories, lightness for magnitude, and hue transitions and chroma differences for improved contrast through color sets.
Meshes of the three basic scheme types are also used for two-variable combinations. In the keynote, I’ll talk about map design, data representations, and color use for communication.
Dr. Cynthia A. Brewer is a professor of geography and information sciences and technology (IST) at The Pennsylvania State University. She teaches introductory
cartography and map design courses and advises graduate students working in cartography. She has worked as a map and atlas design consultant for the US Census Bureau,
US Geological Survey, National Cancer Institute, National Center for Health Statistics, and National Park Service. In 2023, she was awarded the International Cartographic
Society's highest honor, the Carl Mannerfelt Gold Medal, for her distinguished contribution to the field. She is currently the Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs in the College of IST.