The Art of Visualization
Presentation Date: Wednesday, May 20, 2026
Location: Online for the Eleventh Parker Heliophysics Scholars Meeting
In this talk, I’ll discuss the value and practice of data visualization. The best visualizations are clear and deep at the same time—and in today’s world, often interactive as well. I’ll focus especially on the enduring importance of what the great statistician John Tukey called “Exploratory Data Analysis” (EDA) fifty years ago, and how—even in an era of AI assistants that can generate beautiful, highly functional online graphics—Tukey’s original principles remain central.
In much the same way that artists recognize AI can follow instructions but not (yet!) generate fully independent creative inspiration, data visualization still relies—like art—more on human curiosity than on technology. I’ll place our current moment in context—where so many tools can now be interconnected to create nearly any visualization imaginable—within the broader history of data visualization, essentially explaining “how we got to now.” I’ll conclude with a perspective on what comes next.
Relevant links to software I’ll showcase include: glueviz.org, worldwidetelescope.org, and LIVE-env.org.