Mona Chalabi (@MonaChalabi) is the Data Editor of The Guardian US and a columnist at New York Magazine. As well as co-producing a four-part documentary series about vaginas , Mona has written for TV shows on National Geographic, the BBC and VICE. Mona draws. Her illustrations, which are designed to make numbers more relatable, can be viewed on her Instagram account and were recently commended by the Royal Statistical Society. Before getting into journalism, Mona worked in the nonprofit sector, first at the Bank of England, then Transparency International and the International Organization for Migration.

Program note: During this episode, Mona described a recent story she had written about the departure of John Thompson, Director of the Census Bureau and recent guest on S+S (Episode #32). Given the connection between the episodes, we opted to expedite the release of this latest episode. We hope that you will enjoy these conversations.