Databases Reference
In-Depth Information
CHAPTER 9
Data Visualization and
Fraud Detection
There are two contributors for this chapter, Mark Hansen, a professor
at Columbia University, and Ian Wong, an inference scientist at Square.
(That's where he was in November 2012 when he came to the class. He
now works at Prismatic.) These two speakers and sections don't share
a single cohesive theme between them, although both will discuss data
visualization…and both have lived in California! More seriously, both
are thoughtful people (like all our contributors) who have thought
deeply about themes and questions such as what makes good code, the
nature of programming languages as a form of expression, and the
central question of this topic: what is data science?
Data Visualization History
First up is
Mark Hansen
, who recently came from UCLA via a sab‐
batical at the
New York Times
R & D Lab to Columbia University with
a joint appointment in journalism and statistics, where he heads the
Brown Institute for Media Innovation. He has a PhD in statistics from
Berkeley, and worked at Bell Labs (there's Bell Labs again!) for several
years prior to his appointment at UCLA, where he held an appoint‐
ment in statistics, with courtesy appointments in electrical engineering
and design/media art. He is a renowned data visualization expert and
also an energetic and generous speaker. We were lucky to have him on
a night where he'd been drinking an XXL latte from Starbucks (we
refuse to use their made-up terminology) to highlight his natural ef‐
fervescence.
