Jeffrey Heer
{{short description|American computer scientist|bot=PearBOT 5}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=May 2021}}
{{Infobox scientist
| name = Jeffrey Michael Heer
| image = Jeffrey Heer at UW.jpg
| image_size =
| caption = Heer in 2016
| birth_date = {{Birth date and age|1979|06|15}}
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| citizenship =
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| alma_mater = University of California, Berkeley (BS, MS, PhD)
| doctoral_advisor = Maneesh Agrawala
| doctoral_students = {{plainlist|
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| known_for = Data visualization
| website = {{URL|homes.cs.washington.edu/~jheer}}
| footnotes =
| field = Computer science
| work_institution = University of Washington,
Stanford University
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| prizes = TR35, Sloan Fellowship, ACM Grace Murray Hopper Award
}}
Jeffrey Michael Heer (born June 15, 1979) is an American computer scientist best known for his work on information visualization and interactive data analysis. He is a professor of computer science & engineering{{cite web|url=http://www.cs.washington.edu/people/faculty/|title=Faculty - Computer Science & Engineering}} at the University of Washington, where he directs the UW Interactive Data Lab.{{cite web|url=http://idl.cs.washington.edu/|title=UW Interactive Data Lab}} He co-founded Trifacta with Joe Hellerstein and Sean Kandel in 2012.
Education
Heer received a B.S., M.S. and PhD from the University of California, Berkeley.{{Cite web |url=https://homes.cs.washington.edu/~jheer/bio/ |title=Jeffrey Heer – Bio |website=washington.edu |access-date=2021-05-27}} As a graduate student at UC Berkeley, he developed the Prefuse and Flare{{cite web|url=http://flare.prefuse.org/|title=Data Visualization for the Web|publisher=Flare }} visualization toolkits.
Research and career
Heer was an assistant professor of computer science at Stanford University, from 2009 to 2013. He is also co-founder and chief experience officer of Trifacta.{{cite web|url=http://www.trifacta.com/people|title=Trifacta|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131207233319/http://www.trifacta.com/people|archive-date=December 7, 2013|url-status=dead}} Heer's research focuses on new systems and techniques for data visualization. As a member of the Stanford University faculty, he worked with Mike Bostock on the Protovis and D3.js systems.
Heer then moved to the University of Washington where he worked with students and collaborators to develop the Vega and Vega-Lite visualisation grammars. Along with Joe Hellerstein and Sean Kandel, Heer has also developed interactive tools for data transformation (including Data Wrangler{{cite conference|conference=Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems|author1=Sean Kandel|author2=Andreas Paepcke|author3=Joseph Hellerstein|author4=Jeffrey Heer|doi=10.1145/1978942.1979444|title=Wrangler: interactive visual specification of data transformation scripts}}), leading to the founding of Trifacta. Other research contributions include work on the graphical perception of visualizations, social data analysis, text visualization, and interactive language translation tools.
Awards and recognition
Heer's research has been recognized by an ACM Grace Murray Hopper Award,{{cite web|url=http://awards.acm.org/award_winners/heer_1520709|title=ACM Grace Murray Hopper Award 2016}} a Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation Data-Driven Discovery Investigator Award,{{cite web|url=https://www.moore.org/programs/science/data-driven-discovery/investigators|title=Home - Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation|access-date=2016-04-12|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160315232702/https://www.moore.org/programs/science/data-driven-discovery/investigators|archive-date=2016-03-15|url-status=dead}} an Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship,{{cite web|url=http://www.sloan.org/fileadmin/media/files/srf/2012_srf_nytimes_ad.pdf|title=Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowships 2012|publisher=Alfred P. Sloan Foundation|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160509113029/http://www.sloan.org/fileadmin/media/files/srf/2012_srf_nytimes_ad.pdf|archive-date=2016-05-09}} and MIT Technology Review's TR35 list.{{cite web|url=http://www2.technologyreview.com/tr35/profile.aspx?TRID=788|title=Innovator Under 35: Jeffrey Heer, 30|first=MIT Technology|last=Review}} Heer and his students have won best paper awards at human-computer interaction{{cite web|url=http://chi2013.acm.org/program/best-of-chi/|title=Best of CHI - CHI 2013}}{{cite web|url=http://www.acm.org/uist/uist2011/#BestPaper|title=UIST 2011 - 24th Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (October 16-19, 2011 Santa Barbara, California)}} and visualization{{cite web|url=http://www.eurovis2013.de/|title=EuroVis 2013 - The Eurographics Conference on Visualization}} conferences. His work has also appeared in the popular press.{{cite web|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/18/technology/for-big-data-scientists-hurdle-to-insights-is-janitor-work.html|title=For Big-Data Scientists, 'Janitor Work' Is Key Hurdle to Insights|date=18 August 2014|work=The New York Times}}{{cite web|url=http://gigaom.com/2012/10/04/how-trifacta-wants-to-teach-humans-and-data-to-work-together/|archive-url=https://archive.today/20131128071936/http://gigaom.com/2012/10/04/how-trifacta-wants-to-teach-humans-and-data-to-work-together/|url-status=dead|archive-date=November 28, 2013|title=Gigaom - Why Trifacta is teaching humans and data to work together|first=Derrick|last=Harris|date=October 4, 2012}}{{cite web|url=http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2018546054_computerscience28m.html|title=UW recruits superstars of computer-science world|author=Katherine Long|work=Seattle Times|date=June 27, 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130723065018/http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2018546054_computerscience28m.html|archive-date= July 23, 2013 |url-status=dead}}{{cite web|url=http://www.geekwire.com/2012/love-marriage-university-washington-bolstered-machine-learning-big-data-staff/|title=Love and marriage: How the UW is making bets on the brains of 'big data' and 'machine learning'|date=28 June 2012}}{{cite news|url=http://www.economist.com/node/15557455|title=Show me|newspaper=The Economist|date=February 27, 2010}}{{cite web|url=http://www.technologyreview.com/news/414119/simpler-data-visualization/|title=Simpler Data Visualization|first=Kate|last=Greene}}
Heer was named as an ACM Fellow, in the 2024 class of fellows, "for contributions to information visualization, human-centered data science, and interactive machine learning".{{cite web|url=https://www.acm.org/media-center/2025/january/fellows-2024|title= 2024 ACM Fellows Honored for Contributions to Computing That Are Transforming Science and Society|publisher=Association for Computing Machinery|date=January 22, 2025|access-date=2025-01-22}}
References
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Category:University of California, Berkeley alumni
Category:Stanford University faculty
Category:University of Washington Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering faculty
Category:American computer scientists
Category:Sloan Research Fellows
Category:2024 fellows of the Association for Computing Machinery