Denver Chapter In-Person Meeting: Encouraging Dialogue through Narrative-Based Data Dashboards

You are invited to the November 17th meeting of the Denver Chapter of the Society of Decision Professionals.

The meeting will be held at the Beck Center at 1700 Washington Av, Golden, CO 80401. The meeting will be in the Third Floor Boardroom. There is plenty of free street and lot parking available.

Natalie Daniels of Virga Labs, who presented a pair of excellent posters at last year's SDP Annual Conference in Vancouver, will be presenting her work to the Denver SDP. It combines data science, decision science, and the environment. It is the Colorado trifecta.

Agenda

• 6 PM Socializing and networking
• 615 PM Presentation
• 7 PM Chapter business and announcements
• 715 PM Wind down - Socializing and networking

 
Topic: Encouraging Dialogue through Narrative-Based Data Dashboards
Speaker: Natalie Coston Daniels
Date: Monday, November 17, 2025
Time: 6:00pm - 7:30pm MT
Location: Beck Center, 1700 Washington Av, Golden, CO 80401

There are diverse and competing uses for the decreasing supply of Colorado River Basin water, making it critical that broad groups of stakeholders are able to collaboratively discuss and comprehensively plan for uncertain future hydrologic conditions. Modern decision science techniques are designed to address the deep uncertainties of the Basin as well as the diverse needs of its communities, industries, and ecosystems, but these concepts can be unfamiliar or require a shift in thinking, which can be a barrier for decision makers. In order to help bridge the gap between previous modes of thinking and Decision Making Under Deep Uncertainty (DMDU), Virga Labs partnered with Arizona State University to develop and showcase nine storylines designed to illustrate a broad range of plausible future hydrologic conditions in the Basin under climate change.

The storylines highlight distinct near and long-term futures, moving stakeholders away from trying to settle on the most likely scenarios to a DMDU-based discussion considering the wide range of potential hydrologic conditions. The storylines were developed by grouping together similar time series from a broad suite of stream flows based on the historic record, statistical models, and physically based hydrology models by using a k-means clustering algorithm to identify similar statistical behavior and then layering on dynamic time warping to group by temporal patterns. These storylines were input into the Colorado River Simulation System RiverWare model, and the projected results such as projected reservoir conditions, energy generation at the major hydropower facilities, and water supply availability are displayed in a web-based dashboard called RiverViz (riverviz.io). 

Natalie Coston Daniels, Data Scientist

Natalie aims to use her background in mathematics to better understand the challenging questions at the intersection of data and climate. After completing a Bachelor's Degree in Mathematics with a focus in Environmental Science at Northern Arizona University, she received her Masters in Applied Mathematics and PhD in Theoretical Probability from the University of Colorado Boulder. Natalie spent three years building skills as a Data Scientist at Lumen Technologies before joining the team at Virga Labs where she can now put her knowledge to work by leveraging data to drive understanding of complex systems and enable actionable insights. Born and raised in Tucson, AZ, and currently living in Broomfield, CO, Natalie has always called the southwest her home and is excited to work in the field she is passionate about.