Martin Wattenberg, IBM

Abstract: Data visualization technology has historically been accessible only to the elite in academia, business, and government. But in recent years web-based visualizations—ranging from political art projects to news features—have reached audiences of millions. Through a series of examples I will discuss how the public nature of the web could transform the field of visualization--and how in turn visualization might change the nature of public discourse.

BIO:
Martin Wattenberg is a computer scientist and new media artist. He is the founding manager of the Visual Communication Lab at IBM Research, which investigates new forms of visualization and how they can enable insight and collaboration. The lab’s latest project is Many Eyes (http://www.many-eyes.com), an experiment in open, public data visualization.

Some of Wattenberg's previous visualization projects include the Baby Name Voyager, the "History Flow" method of analyzing Wikipedia (with Fernanda Viégas), and the groundbreaking Map of the Market. Wattenberg is also known for his visualization-based artwork, which has been exhibited in venues such as the London Institute of Contemporary Arts, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the New York Museum of Modern Art. Wattenberg holds a Ph.D. in mathematics from U.C. Berkeley.