About Me

History and Experience

Overview

Hello! My name is Oen McKinley, and I am a second-year Ph.D. candidate with the Visual Interface and Behavior Exploration Lab at Washington University in St. Louis. My focus is in the field of Data Visualizations, working with Dr. Alvitta Ottley.

I grew up in Northfield, Minnesota for most of my childhood before going to Grinnell College in Iowa. I then moved to Omaha, Nebraska with my now wife. After moving to Des Moines, we now find ourselves in St. Louis, Missouri for my Ph.D. research at Washington University.

Work and Education History

I received a Bachelor of Arts from Grinnell College for Computer Science and Political Science in 2015. After graduation, I worked as a Software Engineer for three years with a Bay Area start-up on developing their employee benefit software solution.

Current Ph.D.

After three years of software engineering, I decided to make a career change into research. I had always been interested in the human side of computer science, and after my rotations I have been working with Alvitta Ottley’s Visual Interface and Behavior Exploration Lab at Washington University, focusing on the field of Data Visualization.

For more about my current research, see below:

My Research

Other Information

Hobbies

In addition to my Ph.D. research, I also have several hobbies including singing, guitar, baking, fiction writing, 3D animation, reading, video gaming, and blogging.

Here are some relevant links:

Contact Info and Relevant Links

Email: m.oen@wustl.edu

Github: oenmckinley

Google Scholar: Oen G. McKinley