Nathan Yau is an American statistician and data visualization expert.

Nathan Yau
Born
Nathan Chun-Yin Yau

Alma materUC Berkeley (BS)
UCLA (MS, PhD)
Known forFlowingData blog
Scientific career
Fields
InstitutionsU.S. Census
ThesisAn Online Tool for Personal Data Collection and Exploration (2013)
Doctoral advisorMark Hansen
Websiteflowingdata.com

Early life

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Nathan Chun-Yin Yau grew up in Fresno, California.[1][2]

He received a Bachelor of Science in electrical engineering and computer science from the University of California, Berkeley.[1] He graduated in 2007 with a Master of Science and in 2013 with a PhD in statistics from the University of California, Los Angeles.[1][3][4]

His dissertation was titled "An Online Tool for Personal Data Collection and Exploration" and focused on self-surveillance techniques.[2][5] Yau's earlier self-surveillance work on the "Personal Environmental Impact Report" was featured in Yau's chapter of the book Beautiful Data, published in 2009.[6][7]

Career

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Yau is known for his blog FlowingData in which he publishes writing and tutorials on information design and analytics, as well as visualizations and data science-related projects created by other professionals.[3][8][9]

He is the author of books "Visualize This: The FlowingData Guide to Design, Visualization, and Statistics" (2011) and "Data Points: Visualization That Means Something" (2013).[8][10][11]

Since 2014, Yau has worked at the U.S. Census as a research mathematical statistician.[5]

Selected publications

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  • Yau, Nathan (2011). Visualize This (First ed.). John Wiley and Sons. ISBN 9780470944882. OCLC 729943780.
  • Yau, Nathan (2013). Data points : visualization that means something (First ed.). John Wiley and Sons. ISBN 9781118462195. OCLC 871319880.

References

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  1. ^ a b c "Extraordinary Minds". UCLA College Magazine. Los Angeles: University of California, Los Angeles. 2017. p. 31. Retrieved March 10, 2021 – via Issuu.
  2. ^ a b "An Online Tool for Personal Data Collection and Exploration". 2013. Retrieved March 12, 2021.
  3. ^ a b "Here's how you're probably going to die – in a stunning visualisation". The Daily Telegraph. January 19, 2016. Retrieved December 4, 2019.
  4. ^ "Visualizing Data And Telling Compelling Stories With OkCupid And FlowingData". Fast Company. August 8, 2011. Retrieved December 4, 2019.
  5. ^ a b "Our Researchers | Nathan Yau". United States Census. August 11, 2016. Archived from the original on March 10, 2021. Retrieved March 12, 2021.
  6. ^ "Chapter 1. Seeing Your Life in Data". O'Reilly Media. Retrieved March 12, 2021.
  7. ^ Segaran, Toby; Hammerbacher, Jeff (2009). Beautiful Data: the stories behind elegant data solutions (First ed.). Sebastopol, California: O'Reilly. ISBN 9780596157111. OCLC 827947721.
  8. ^ a b "Visualize This: How to Tell Stories with Data". Brain Pickings. July 26, 2011. Retrieved December 4, 2019.
  9. ^ "The Art of Flowing Data: An interview with Dr Nathan Yau". Statistics Views. November 25, 2015. Retrieved December 4, 2019.
  10. ^ "The Top 30 Best Data Visualization Books on Our Reading List". Solutions Review. November 12, 2019. Retrieved December 4, 2019.
  11. ^ "Infographics: Winds of Change". The Economist. July 6, 2013. Archived from the original on July 15, 2013. Retrieved December 4, 2019.