Preface. Message from the paper chairs

The IEEE Visual Analytics Science and Technology (VAST) Conference is now in its eleventh year, and its seventh year as an IEEE Conference. It remains the primary venue for the rapidly growing feld of visual analytics. Visual analytics is the science of analytical reasoning supported by highly interactive visual interfaces, and seeks to integrate computational analytics with human cognitive processes. Visual analytics requires interdisciplinary science, going beyond traditional visualization to include statistics, mathematics, knowledge representation, management and discovery technologies, cognitive and perceptual sciences, decision sciences, and more.