Located in New York City, the Parsons Institute for Information Mapping (PIIM) is a one-of-a-kind university research and real-world development facility within The New School — a global university.

Co-founded by Former Senator Robert Kerrey (D-NE), PIIM's core mission is to discover and promote new ways for people to rapidly understand, analyze and respond to large amounts of complex data.

PIIM's energies and focus centers around three, key programs and activities. Our focus in these areas enables our team to strive continually for the perfect balance of deliverables-focused work, original research, and educational dissemination.

Public Opinion Tool

Through an intensive collaboration with The New School for Social Research, PIIM gathered data from all US elections from 1776 to 2004 and conducted an in-depth analysis to identify the key issues regarding each election and how those issues affected the election’s outcome.

The result was the Public Opinion Tool, an interactive, web-based application that highlights our unique visualization methodologies and supports research endeavors for not only students and academics but political analysts and enthusiasts alike.

Source Tool

Developed in conjunction with the India China Institute and researchers located throughout the United States, India and China, the Source Tool enables researchers—with varying degrees of spoken and written English—to utilize the application side-by-side with their counterparts.

Emergency Operation Center (EOC)—Shared Situational Awareness Tool

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey commissioned PIIM to assess and design a thin-client solution that could connect its network of satellite offices in the New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut area as well as monitor and secure the activities of the region’s airports, ports, and roadway.

Employing our Visualization-Driven Rapid Prototyping methodology, PIIM was able to document every facet of the system and deliver it to the Army Corps of Engineers for full engineering and successful deployment within an impressive three-month period.

Geospace and Media Tool

Geospace and Media Tool (GMT) is an advanced information visualization application that connects news articles with geospatial, census and human network data. With its stream of up to 150,000 news articles per day, GMT provides an impressive, near real-time access to global happenings.

Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC)

Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) is a case study that reveals the resonating impact of a single military base’s closing and personnel reallocation on all other bases throughout the country. This single visualization provides a thorough qualitative and quantitative understanding of both socioeconomic and political reverberations caused from a single base closure.