302 Ben Fry, Principal

302 Ben Fry, Principal

From UNIQUEWAYS WITH THOMAS GIRARD by Thomas Girard

March 27, 2026 · 32 min · Season 1 · Episode 302

About this episode

Ben Fry discusses his research and contributions to data visualization and design.

Ben Fry received his doctoral degree from the Aesthetics + Computation Group at the MIT Media Laboratory, where his research focused on combining fields such as computer science, statistics, graphic design, and data visualization as a means for understanding information. After completing his dissertation in 2004, he spent time developing tools for visualization of genetic data as a postdoc with Eric Lander at the Eli & Edythe L. Broad Institute of MIT & Harvard. During the 2006-2007 school year, Ben was the Nierenberg Chair of Design for the Carnegie Mellon School of Design. He is the author of Visualizing Data (O’Reilly, 2007) and the co-author, with Casey Reas, of Processing: A Programming Handbook for Visual Designers and Artists (MIT Press, 2007) and Getting Started with Processing (O’Reilly, 2010), which describe the project they co-founded in 2001.

People in this episode

Host: Thomas Girard

Guest: Ben Fry

Topics covered

  • data visualization
  • graphic design
  • computer science
  • statistics
  • education

Keywords

  • data visualization
  • Ben Fry
  • MIT
  • graphic design
  • Processing

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: MIT Media Laboratory, Eli & Edythe L. Broad Institute of MIT & Harvard, Carnegie Mellon School of Design

Books & works: Visualizing Data, Processing: A Programming Handbook for Visual Designers and Artists, Getting Started with Processing

More episodes of UNIQUEWAYS WITH THOMAS GIRARD

Explore listener stats, chart rankings, contacts and more on the UNIQUEWAYS WITH THOMAS GIRARD podcast page.