AJLS Co-Paneling Network

1999 – 2025
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Institution Colors

About This Visualization
Methodology

This visualization maps the co-paneling network of scholars who have presented at AJLS conferences (1999–2025). Two presenters are connected if they appeared on the same panel, with edge weight reflecting how many times they co-paneled. Nodes represent individual scholars, sized by total appearances and colored by primary institutional affiliation using each university's official brand color.

The network reveals clusters of scholars who frequently appear together, often reflecting shared research interests, institutional connections, or mentor-student relationships. The year range slider allows exploration of how the network evolved over time; the cumulative toggle shows the accumulated network up to each year. The minimum weight filter isolates the strongest co-paneling relationships. Institution and legend panels provide visual reference for the color coding.

Data Source

Co-paneling edges are computed from the AJLS presentations database: 1,119 presentations across 26 annual conferences (1999–2025). Conference programs were scraped from the association's Google Sites archive and parsed with a custom regex-based pipeline that handles diverse formatting across 26 years of programs.

Network Construction

Two presenters sharing the same panel create one co-paneling edge. Repeated co-paneling on different panels or in different years increases the edge weight. Self-loops are excluded and person pairs are deduplicated. Node positions use D3.js force simulation with charge repulsion and collision detection. Timeline layout maps the x-axis to a presenter's first conference year.

Institution Assignment & Colors

Each presenter's primary institution is the most frequently listed affiliation across all their appearances. Institution names are normalized through a 191-entry alias table. The top institutions are colored with their official university brand colors (e.g., Harvard crimson, Princeton orange, Columbia blue). All others appear in grey.

Limitations

  • Panel assignments are imperfect for some early conferences where programs lacked clear panel structure.
  • The network captures only co-paneling, not citation, advising, or other scholarly relationships.
  • Institution assignments reflect the most common affiliation, not necessarily a presenter's current position.
  • Name normalization links ~78% of presenters to the broader persons database; unmatched names may represent the same individual under different name forms.