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Cee Nell, PhD

(They/them)

Dr. Cee Nell is a data visualization specialist in the Data Science Branch of the USGS Water Resources Mission Area.

Cee is the Lead of VizLab and Analytics in the Data Science Branch of the USGS Water Mission Area. In this role they develop timely and innovative data visualizations to communicate complex scientific concepts. In this position, Cee develops reproducible data processing and visualization workflows to create high quality data products.

Cee received a PhD in Ecology & Evolutionary Biology from the University of California Irvine in 2018. Their dissertation looked at tri-trophic interactions (involving plants, herbivores, and insectivorous bird predators) in the context of tree diversity, plant defense syndromes, and bird behavior. 

Science and Products

The water cycle

An illustrated diagram of the water cycle. This is a modern, updated version of the widely used diagram featured on the USGS Water Science School. Notably, this new water cycle diagram depicts humans and major categories of human water use as key components of the water cycle, in addition to the key pools and fluxes of the hydrologic cycle. This product targets an 8th grade audience and is designe
Authors
Hayley R. Corson-Dosch, Cee S. Nell, Rachel E. Volentine, Althea A. Archer, Ellen Bechtel, Jennifer L. Bruce, Nicole Felts, Tara A. Gross, Dianne Lopez-Trujillo, Charlotte E. Riggs, Emily K. Read
By
Water Resources Mission Area, Caribbean-Florida Water Science Center (CFWSC), Colorado Water Science Center, Upper Midwest Water Science Center
link
Vizlab Logo

Water Data Visualizations

Water data visualizations are provocative visuals and captivating stories that inform, inspire, and empower people to address our Nation's most pressing water issues. USGS data science and visualization experts use visualizations to communicate water data in compelling and often interactive ways when static images or written narrative can’t effectively communicate the interconnectivity and...
By
Water Resources Mission Area
link

Water Data Visualizations

Water data visualizations are provocative visuals and captivating stories that inform, inspire, and empower people to address our Nation's most pressing water issues. USGS data science and visualization experts use visualizations to communicate water data in compelling and often interactive ways when static images or written narrative can’t effectively communicate the interconnectivity and...
Learn More
Filter Total Items: 41
U.S. River Conditions, April to June 2023 thumbnail image link
A split-panel map of Salt Lake City, Utah, highlighting the Great Salt Lake, shows 2006 Landsat imagery on the left side
link
Stacked bar chart of 1990-2019 agriculture, domestic, and industry freshwater withdrawals in the U.S.
link
Animation of five satellite images of the Tanana River in Alaska. The imagery is colored in shades of blue to show the degree
link
A tile map of the U.S. with lollipop charts for each state that show differences in forest area magnitude
link
Six lollipop charts highlight deviations in maximum percent ice cover on the five Great Lakes
link
Circular calendar charts show the projected start, duration, and end of spawning for each species in each year from 1950-2099
link
Circular calendar charts showing the projected effects of climate change on the onset and end of spawning
link
The loss of the North American grassland biome.
link
A tile map of the U.S. with alluvial charts for each state and the nation that show changes in the total volume of water use
link
Step chart timeseries of U.S. electricity generation (in gigawatt hours) across five classes of renewable energy, 2000-2020
link
A timeseries of monthly Oceanic Niño Index values from 1950 to 2023.
link
A tile map of the U.S. showing mean daily stream temperature for the 5 USGS stream sites with the longest daily temperature
link
Animation showing changes in stream temperature relative to air temperature over the course of a day.
link
A scatter plot of water temperature versus air temperature on April 27, 2019, for the Paine Run stream in Shenandoah National
link
A heatmap of streamflow downstream from the Glen Canyon Dam at USGS gage 09402500 in the Grand Canyon.
link
A map of the Potomac River stream network is colored by Strahler stream order, where higher order represents a larger stream.
link
A map of the contiguous U.S. using a snowflake hex pattern to show relative snow cover for March 2023 compared to 20-year avg
link
A map of the contiguous U.S. using a snowflake hex pattern to show snow cover for March 2023.
link
Mean daily streamflow (cfs) of the Rio Grande at Embudo, New Mexico from 1991 to 2022.
link
Animated map of the continental U.S. and paired line chart.
link
link

Reproducible code demonstrating the evolution of a recent data viz of CONUS snow cover: Origin and development of a Snowflake Map

The process for making a snow cover map, from concept to product, is described in this example of Open Science.

Read Article

Science and Products

  • Publications

    The water cycle

    An illustrated diagram of the water cycle. This is a modern, updated version of the widely used diagram featured on the USGS Water Science School. Notably, this new water cycle diagram depicts humans and major categories of human water use as key components of the water cycle, in addition to the key pools and fluxes of the hydrologic cycle. This product targets an 8th grade audience and is designe
    Authors
    Hayley R. Corson-Dosch, Cee S. Nell, Rachel E. Volentine, Althea A. Archer, Ellen Bechtel, Jennifer L. Bruce, Nicole Felts, Tara A. Gross, Dianne Lopez-Trujillo, Charlotte E. Riggs, Emily K. Read
    By
    Water Resources Mission Area, Caribbean-Florida Water Science Center (CFWSC), Colorado Water Science Center, Upper Midwest Water Science Center
  • Science
    link
    Vizlab Logo

    Water Data Visualizations

    Water data visualizations are provocative visuals and captivating stories that inform, inspire, and empower people to address our Nation's most pressing water issues. USGS data science and visualization experts use visualizations to communicate water data in compelling and often interactive ways when static images or written narrative can’t effectively communicate the interconnectivity and...
    By
    Water Resources Mission Area
    link

    Water Data Visualizations

    Water data visualizations are provocative visuals and captivating stories that inform, inspire, and empower people to address our Nation's most pressing water issues. USGS data science and visualization experts use visualizations to communicate water data in compelling and often interactive ways when static images or written narrative can’t effectively communicate the interconnectivity and...
    Learn More
  • Multimedia
    Filter Total Items: 41
    U.S. River Conditions, April to June 2023 thumbnail image link
    A split-panel map of Salt Lake City, Utah, highlighting the Great Salt Lake, shows 2006 Landsat imagery on the left side
    link
    Stacked bar chart of 1990-2019 agriculture, domestic, and industry freshwater withdrawals in the U.S.
    link
    Animation of five satellite images of the Tanana River in Alaska. The imagery is colored in shades of blue to show the degree
    link
    A tile map of the U.S. with lollipop charts for each state that show differences in forest area magnitude
    link
    Six lollipop charts highlight deviations in maximum percent ice cover on the five Great Lakes
    link
    Circular calendar charts show the projected start, duration, and end of spawning for each species in each year from 1950-2099
    link
    Circular calendar charts showing the projected effects of climate change on the onset and end of spawning
    link
    The loss of the North American grassland biome.
    link
    A tile map of the U.S. with alluvial charts for each state and the nation that show changes in the total volume of water use
    link
    Step chart timeseries of U.S. electricity generation (in gigawatt hours) across five classes of renewable energy, 2000-2020
    link
    A timeseries of monthly Oceanic Niño Index values from 1950 to 2023.
    link
    A tile map of the U.S. showing mean daily stream temperature for the 5 USGS stream sites with the longest daily temperature
    link
    Animation showing changes in stream temperature relative to air temperature over the course of a day.
    link
    A scatter plot of water temperature versus air temperature on April 27, 2019, for the Paine Run stream in Shenandoah National
    link
    A heatmap of streamflow downstream from the Glen Canyon Dam at USGS gage 09402500 in the Grand Canyon.
    link
    A map of the Potomac River stream network is colored by Strahler stream order, where higher order represents a larger stream.
    link
    A map of the contiguous U.S. using a snowflake hex pattern to show relative snow cover for March 2023 compared to 20-year avg
    link
    A map of the contiguous U.S. using a snowflake hex pattern to show snow cover for March 2023.
    link
    Mean daily streamflow (cfs) of the Rio Grande at Embudo, New Mexico from 1991 to 2022.
    link
    Animated map of the continental U.S. and paired line chart.
    link
  • News
    link

    Reproducible code demonstrating the evolution of a recent data viz of CONUS snow cover: Origin and development of a Snowflake Map

    The process for making a snow cover map, from concept to product, is described in this example of Open Science.

    Read Article