Zan Armstrong

I analyze and visualize data. More generally, I am curious about how things work, exploring information, ideas, and places, and sharing the experience of discovery with others.

I studied math at Williams College including research in configuration spaces, taught high school juniors at Chewonki Semester School in Maine, and raced through the forests of Sweden orienteering.

At Google, I was the lead analyst responsible for forecasting and analyzing global search ads revenue. Motivated by my work as an analyst, I developed a new charting style to visualize Simpson’s paradox and related statistical issues.

I am currently doing freelance work in analysis/interactive visualization and studying. I am always on the lookout for great people to work with and important/interesting data to analyze and visualize.

Data Viz Research

Visualizing Simpson’s Paradox and Mix Effects

I presented this research at InfoVis in Paris in November 2014 and it was published in the Proceedings of IEEE InfoVis 2014, IEEE (23% acceptance rate). It’s the result of my collaboration with Google’s Data Visualization research group led by Martin Wattenberg and Fernanda Viégas.

The slide deck from the presentation is here.

Robert Kosera reviewed the presentation on his Eager Eyes Blog and it was mentioned in Moritz Stefaner and Enrico Bertini’s Data Stories podcast.

Open Vis Conf presentation

In April 2016 I had the pleasure of presenting at OpenVisConf. I spoke about how “Everything is Seasonal”, showing how seasonal patterns are an important part of our lives and our data.

Links to slides, video, and resources and referneces.