The PolicyViz Podcast

Stefanie Posavec is a designer, artist, and author whose practice focuses on finding new, experimental approaches to communicating data and information. This work has been exhibited internationally at major galleries including the V&A, the Design Museum, Somerset House, and the Wellcome Collection (London), the Centre Pompidou (Paris), and MoMA (New York). Her work is also in the permanent collection of MoMA. Besides her new book with Miriam, she has also co-authored two books that emphasise a more personal approach to data: Dear Data and the journal Observe, Collect, Draw!

Sonja Kuijpers runs STUDIO TERP, her one-woman data illustration studio based in Eindhoven, Netherlands. She designs (data-)visualisations for a diversity of clients such as Scientific American, Philips, as well as small institutions, companies, and publishers. Recently the Climate Book by Greta Thunberg was published, for which Sonja (re-)designed the graphs. 

Experimenting with shapes and styles, she also designs her own independent dataviz and data art projects. She received an Information is Beautiful Gold Award in 2019 for her personal project ‘A View on despair’. Creating data visualisation, to Sonja, is trying to locate herself in the data, making sense of numbers with a human approach, showing insights as well as the aesthetics of information and data.

Stefanie | Web | Twitter
Sonja | Web | Twitter | IIB Award, A View on Despair
Warming Stripes
I am a book. I am a portal to the universe. by Stefanie Posavec and Miriam Quick
The Climate Book, by Greta Thurnberg | Amazon US | Amazon UK

Episode #187: Stefanie Posavec & Miriam Quick
Episode #2: Dear Data

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Lilach Manheim Laurio leads the Data Experience Center of Excellence at Visa, where she helps data practitioners across the company to elevate the quality of their data products, and improve their skills in data visualization and data experience design. Lilach’s data visualization work blends together a background in art history, library science, and human-centered information design, along with a passion for visual metaphor and pun.

Lilach has served as a Tableau Zen master (2018-2019), Tableau Public featured author, and co-organizer of her local Tableau user group chapter. She has contributed as guest author to the Tableau blog and the Nightingale journal, writing about design and user experience in data visualization. She has also spoken on topics ranging from visual metaphor to dataviz critique at Tableau conferences and user groups across the U.S.

Lilach holds a Bachelor degree in Art History and a Master of Library and Information Science (MLIS).

Lilach | Web | Twitter | Tableau Public

Visa Chart Components
Elevating Data Experiences framework
Chris DeMartini (Twitter)
Frank Elavsky (Twitter)
Data Visualization SocietyThe Shape Parameter of a Two-Variable Graph (banking to 45 degrees paper from Cleveland, McGill, and McGill)

Related blog posts:

• PolicyViz: A Better Path Toward Criticizing Data Visualization
• PolicyViz: Should we give awards for data visualizations?
• PolicyViz: Critiquing a Data Visualization Critique
• Fernanda Viégas and Martin Wattenberg: Design and Redesign in Data Visualization

Books

• Functional Aesthetics for Data Visualization
• Building Science Graphics: An Illustrated Guide to Communicating Science through Diagrams and Visualizations
• Joyful Infographics: A Friendly, Human Approach to Data
• Data Visualisation: A Handbook for Data Driven Design
• Data Literacy Fundamentals: Understanding the Power & Value of Data

Vidya Setlur is the director of Tableau Research. She leads an interdisciplinary team of research scientists in areas including data visualization, multimodal interaction, statistics, applied ML, and NLP. She earned her doctorate in Computer Graphics in 2005 at Northwestern University. Prior to joining Tableau, she worked as a principal research scientist at the Nokia Research Center for seven years. Her personal research interests lie at the intersection of natural language processing and computer graphics to better understand data semantics and user intent to inform the meaningful visual depiction of data.

Interpreter turned analyst, Bridget Cogley brings an interdisciplinary approach to data analytics. As Chief Visualization Officer at Versalytix, her role uplifts data visualization within the org and helps shape the vision. Her dynamic, engaging presentation style is paired with thought-provoking content, including ethics and data visualization linguistics. She has a deep interest in the nuances of communication, having been an American Sign Language Interpreter for nine years. She is currently a Tableau Hall of Fame Visionary. Her work incorporates human-centric dashboard design, an anthropological take on design, ethics, and language. She extensively covers speech analytics and open text. Prior to consulting, Bridget managed an analytics department, which included vetting and selecting Tableau, creating views in the database, and building comprehensive reporting. She also has experience in training, HR, managing, and sales support.

Functional Aesthetics for Data Visualization
Webinar about the book

Vidya | Tableau Research | Twitter
Bridget | Tableaufit | Twitter | The Logic of Dashboards presentation (YouTube)

Paper: Striking a Balance: Reader Takeaways and Preferences when Integrating Text and Charts by Chase Stokes, Vidya Setlur, Bridget Cogley, Arvind Satyanarayan, and Marti Hearst

Versalytix
Stroop Effect
Tableau User Groups
VisComm
Information is Beautiful Awards

Other recent books

• Jen Christiansen, Building Science Graphics: An Illustrated Guide to Communicating Science through Diagrams and Visualizations
• Nigel Holmes, Joyful Infographics: A Friendly, Human Approach to Data

Episode #211: Jock D. Mackinlay

Edith Young is an artist, designer, and writer from New York. Princeton Architectural Press published her first book, Color Scheme: An Irreverent History of Art and Pop Culture Through Color Palettes, in 2021. 

This is the final podcast episode of 2022! I hope you have a wonderful, safe, and healthy holiday season. I look forward to good things coming in 2023!

Edith’s work: www.edith.nyc
Edith’s palette prints: www.edithyoung.com
Book: Color Scheme: An Irreverent History of Art and Pop Culture Through Color Palettes
PolicyViz blog post on color

Episode #203: Alli Torban
Episode #226: Abby Covert

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Partnerhero: to waive set up fees, go to http://partnerhero.com/policyviz and mention “PolicyViz” during onboarding!

With more than 200 guests and eight seasons of episodes, the PolicyViz Podcast is one of the longest-running data visualization podcasts around. You can support the show by downloading and listening, following the work of my guests,

Ethan Mollick is an Associate Professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, where he studies and teaches innovation and entrepreneurship. He is also the author of The Unicorn’s Shadow: Combating the Dangerous Myths that Hold Back Startups, Founders, and Investors. His papers have been published in top management journals and have won multiple awards. His work on crowdfunding is the most cited article in management published in the last seven years.

Prior to his time in academia, Ethan co-founded a startup company, and he currently advises a number of startups and organizations. As the Academic Director and cofounder of Wharton Interactive, he works to transform entrepreneurship education using games and simulations. He has long had interest in using games for teaching, and he co-authored a book on the intersection between video games and business that was named one of the American Library Association’s top 10 business books of the year. He has built numerous teaching games, which are used by tens of thousands of students around the world.

Ethan’s UPenn Website
Ethan’s Personal Website
Ethan on Twitter

Dall-E Tweet
Google Drive folder with Ethan’s Dall-E images
Wharton Interactive
2022 Hugo Awards

Episode #121: Erin Hengel and Paul Goldsmith-Pinkham
Episode #4: Ben Casselman

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Max Kuhn is a software engineer at RStudio. He is currently working on improving R’s modeling capabilities and maintains about 30 packages, including caret. He was a Senior Director of Nonclinical Statistics at Pfizer Global R&D in Connecticut. He was applying models in the pharmaceutical and diagnostic industries for over 18 years. Max has a Ph.D. in Biostatistics. He, and Kjell Johnson, wrote the book Applied Predictive Modeling, which won the Ziegel award from the American Statistical Association, which recognizes the best book reviewed in Technometrics in 2015. Their second book, Feature Engineering and Selection, was published in 2019 and his book with Julia Silge, Tidy Models with R, was published in 2022.

Website at RStudio: https://www.rstudio.com/authors/max-kuhn/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/topepos
Github: https://github.com/topepo 

R Packages:
autoML
caret
Quarto
RMarkdown
tidymodels
tidyverse

Books from Max:
Tidy Modeling with R: A Framework for Modeling in the Tidyverse
Applied Predictive Modeling
Feature Engineering and Selection

R for Data Science: Import, Tidy, Transform, Visualize, and Model Data by Garrett Grolemund and Hadley Wickham

Episode #225: Julia Silge
Episode #212: Dr. Cedric Scherer
Episode #210: Dr. Tyler Morgan-Wall
Episode #207: Tom Mock
Episode #150: Learning R
Episode #69: Hadley Wickham

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Abby Covert is an information architect, writer and community organizer with two decades of experience helping people make sense of messes. In addition to being an active mentor to those new to sensemaking, she has also served the design community as President of the Information Architecture Institute, co-chair of Information Architecture Summit, and Executive Producer of the I.D.E.A Conference. 

Abby is a founding faculty member of School of Visual Arts’ Products of Design graduate program. She also managed the team that helped Rosenfeld Media to start both the Design Operations Summit and Advancing Research Conference. Her most proud achievement is having come up with the idea for World Information Architecture Day, bringing accessibly priced education to thousands in their local communities annually. 

In addition to running events, you may have seen her presenting her work on stage at: Blend, Business to Buttons, Confab, Creative Mornings, Designing for Digital, EdUI, EMACTL, EuroIA, Generate, GIANT, IA Summit, IA Conference, Italian IA Conference, Interactions, Midwest UX, Mind the Product, Momentum, Plain Language Summit, SearchLOVE, STC Summit, TalkUX, UI21, UI22, UX Cambridge, UX Ottawa, UX Lisbon, UX Tokyo, UX Week, Webstock, Wharton Web Conference, World IA Day 

Abby has written two books for her students. In 2014 she published How to Make Sense of Any Mess, a book to teach IA to everybody. In 2022, she released her much anticipated follow-up, Stuck? Diagrams Help. She currently spends her time making things that help you to make the unclear, clear, many of which she makes available for free on her website abbycovert.com or at accessible price points in her popular Etsy shop AbbytheIA.

Abby lives and writes from Melbourne, Florida where her most important job title is ‘Mom’.

Products & Guides for Sensemakers
How to Make Sense of Any Mess
STUCK? Diagrams Help
My Monthly Email List

Episode #223: Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic

Episode #203: Alli Torban

Episode #198: Scott Berkun

Episode #145: RJ Andrews

Episode #2: Dear Data

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Julia Silge is a data scientist and software engineer at RStudio PBC where she works on open source modeling tools. She is an author, an international keynote speaker, and a real-world practitioner focusing on data analysis and machine learning. Julia loves text analysis, making beautiful charts, and communicating about technical topics with diverse audiences.x

https://juliasilge.com/
https://www.tidymodels.org/
https://www.tmwr.org/
https://smltar.com/
https://vetiver.rstudio.com/

Episode #207: Tom Mock
Episode #201: Leland Wilkinson
Episode #69: Hadley Wickham
Episode #212: Cedric Scherer

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With more than 200 guests and eight seasons of episodes, the PolicyViz Podcast is one of the longest-running data visualization podcasts around. You can support the show by downloading and listening, following the work of my guests, and sharing the show with your networks. I’m grateful to everyone who listens and supports the show, and now I’m offering new exciting ways for you to support the show financially. You can check out the special paid version of my newsletter, receive tex

Pieta Blakely, PhD helps mission-based organizations measure their impact so that they can do what they do well. She started her nonprofit career as a teacher in workforce development and adult basic education. It was important work and she was worried that they didn’t really know if they were doing it well. In the process of trying to answer that question, Pieta got a Masters in Education and a PhD in Social Policy, and became an evaluator.

Pieta has been an evaluator for over fifteen years, the past five of those as a consultant helping mission-based organizations use evaluation to build better and more effective programs. She believes that evaluation isn’t a test, it’s an ongoing process of trying things, measuring the results, and making adjustments. Her goal is to help build organizational cultures that thrive on joyful accountability and doing important work well.

Pieta is known for explaining complicated things clearly, an emphasis on ethics and justice in evaluation, an understanding of how not-for-profits work, and her unpredictable efforts in vegan and wheat-free baking.

You can read her blog at pietablakely.com or watch her live show, Coffee Time with Masterminds, where she talks about leading mission-based organizations through uncertain times.

Eli Holder is a dataviz designer, researcher, and founder of 3iap, a data visualization design firm. 3iap (3 is a pattern) specializes in psychologically effective information design, approachable analytics, and developing human-centered data products. If you’re a data designer, journalist, or analyst, Eli’s Equity-Oriented Dataviz Workshop can quickly teach your team how to visualize data on inequality, without reinforcing inequality. This covers not only his recent research, but also the underlying psychology and alternative design approaches to conventional (harmful) visualizations of racial outcome disparities. 

• Eli on Twitter
• Pieta on Twitter
• What can go wrong? Exploring racial equity dataviz and deficit thinking, with Pieta Blakely and Eli Holder
• Eli will present his paper (co-authored with Cindy Xiong) in October, at IEEE VIS 2022, but you can find a preview of the findings here: “Dispersion vs Disparity” Research Results: How masking uncertainty encourages stereotyping when visualizing social outcome disparities. 
• Presenting data for a Targeted Universalist approach
• Pieta and Eli discuss data viz and equity: https://youtu.be/EcCRUXlgoOc

Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic tells stories with data. She is SWD CEO and author of the brand new book storytelling with you: plan, create, and deliver a stellar presentation and best-selling books storytelling with data: let’s practice! and storytelling with data: a data visualization guide for business professionals, which has been translated into a dozen languages, used as a textbook by more than 100 universities and serves as the course book for tens of thousands of SWD workshop participants. For more than a decade, Cole and her team have delivered interactive learning sessions sought after by data-minded individuals, companies, and philanthropic organizations all over the world. They also help people create graphs that make sense and weave them into compelling stories through the popular SWD community, blog, podcast and videos.

Storytelling with Data
Storytelling with You

Storytelling with You: Plan, Create, and Deliver a Stellar Presentation
Storytelling with Data: Let’s Practice!
Storytelling with Data: A Data Visualization Guide for Business Professionals

Better Presentations: A Guide for Scholars, Researchers, and Wonks

Episode #24: Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic
Episode #141: Tapestry Roundup with Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic

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