Data Stories

This episode of Data Stories is sponsored by Tableau. You can download a free trial at http://tableau.com/datastories.

Hey yo, we have Jen Christiansen from Scientific American with us in DS#52.

Jen is art director of information graphics at Scientific American magazine where she is been for about then years and she has a background in natural science illustration from the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Science communication is one of our favorite topics and we are so happy to have such an amazing expert like Jen on the show. Jen reveals the nitty gritty of scientific visualization and illustration as experienced by one of the top scientific communication magazines in the world.

“How does a scientific piece come to life? Where does an idea for a new piece come from? How do they interact with the scientists to make sure everything they report is accurate and yet accessible for a broad audience? And what does need to be done before an illustration gets ready for print?”

We discuss this and many other questions with Jen. Enjoy the show!

LINKS

• Jen Christiansen’s home page http://jenchristiansen.com
• Scientific American: http://scientificamerican.com
• A Look under the Hood of Online Data Visualization (collection of SciAm graphics from the past)
• Where the Wild Bees Are: Documenting a Loss of Native Bee Species between the 1800s and 2010s (Piece on Bees done with Moritz) (project’s page from Moritz)
• Jan Willem Tulp’s The Flavor Connection (on food pairings theory) – and original scientific article and graphics from Barabási’s lab (pdf)
• Pop Culture Pulsar: Origin Story of Joy Division’s Unknown Pleasures Album Cover (artists using scientists’ images – transcending the context of a visualization)

Related episodes

• Kim Albrecht on Untangling Tennis and the Cosmic Web
• Information+ Conference Review
• Visualization and Statistics with Andrew Gelman and Jessica Hullman