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Amanda Makulec, MPH

  • About
  • My Story
  • My Story
  • Collaborate
  • Blog (old)
  • Writing & Speaking
  • Let's Chat
  • Contact Form
  • …  
    • About
    • My Story
    • My Story
    • Collaborate
    • Blog (old)
    • Writing & Speaking
    • Let's Chat
    • Contact Form
    Connect

    Amanda Makulec, MPH

    • About
    • My Story
    • My Story
    • Collaborate
    • Blog (old)
    • Writing & Speaking
    • Let's Chat
    • Contact Form
    • …  
      • About
      • My Story
      • My Story
      • Collaborate
      • Blog (old)
      • Writing & Speaking
      • Let's Chat
      • Contact Form
      Connect

      Amanda Makulec, MPH

      • creating meaningful

        health visualizations

        Visualizing health information can be complicated.

        Let's design charts and graphics that help people make sense of public health information.

      • Hi, I'm Amanda

        I bring together public health knowledge and data visualization design expertise to create meaningful charts and graphics, and teach others how to do the same.

      • I'm a public health data person who found my professional home in data visualization.

        My roots are in public health data. I started my career as an analyst and evaluator, but quickly discovered that the most joyful parts of my work were in creating data visualizations for reports, infographics, dashboards, and other products.

         

        Over time, I shifted my focused within public health programs increasingly towards chart and dashboard design. I spent eight years working in global health, five years in technology consulting, and now work independently, with the goal to make the fundamentals of data visualization a core skill learned by any public health professional. In addition to consulting,

        I believe anyone can learn how to create a great chart.

        Data visualization as a field where you can work full time, similar to pursuing a path as a full time writer, or as one tool in your tool box, similar to the ways most working professionals write emails or reports as part of their larger scope of work.

         

        I believe anyone can learn, rather quickly, how to create a meaningful chart, focusing on your audience, the analysis finding you need to communicate, your chart selection, and the many seemingly tiny design decisions that go into a great graph. Then, you can spend a career building on those fundamental principles, refining your personal style, and experimenting with the many ways we break 'the rules' in data viz.

        I focus on projects, writing, and speaking opportunities at the intersection of my public health and data visualization expertise.

        Data visualization is a powerful tool - but with power comes great responsibility. I look for opportunities to collaborate with organizations looking to level-up their data visualization capabilities and think critically about the impact of the visualizations we create in public health.

         

        Building communities to share knowledge about data visualization is critical to supporting individuals and teams on their learning journeys in data viz, which is why I serve as the current Executive Director and was a founding board member of the global Data Visualization Society.

      • Collaborate

        Workshops & Teaching

        I deliver customized data visualization workshops to help teams create effective charts and graphics.

         

        Over more than a decade, I have trained more than one thousand people in more than a dozen countries around the world on data visualization design, including working with federal agencies, universities, Fortune 500 companies, and community advocacy organizations.

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        Public Speaking

        I speak on the human elements of health data visualization, visualizing data responsibly, and the intersection of data visualization and misinformation.

         

        My keynotes and guest lectures bring together a mix of technical knowledge and personal stories about my experience as a public health data visualization designer.

         

        I routinely volunteer as a guest lecturer on data visualization within university public health courses, reserve dedicated time for connecting with students to answer questions about data visualization careers.

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        Visualization Design

        My goal is to help you make health information meaningful through charts and graphs, working on projects of varying scale. I focus primarily on developing static charts to communicate analysis findings or to advocate on key public health issues.

         

        I work primarily with researchers looking to level up their charts and figures for publications and social sharing and with community organizations using data for social good.

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      • Writing & Speaking

        Chart Chat

        Each month, Amanda and the three authors of the Big Book of Dashboards - Steve Wexler, Jeffrey Shaffer, and Andy Cotgreave - host a livestream conversation about the tiny design decisions that add up to exceptional charts and graphics.

         

        Register for the upcoming Chart Chats:

        Five Year Retrospective on the Big Book of Dashboards

        Making the Charts and Graphs for the Carbon Almanac, featuring guests Seth Godin and Jasper Croome

         

        Watch past episodes on YouTube

        Health Data Visualization

        Move over data visualization, the era of data simulation is here | Fast Company

        The best charts for tracking coronavirus, according to visualization experts | Fast Company

        Ten Considerations Before You Create Another Chart about COVID-19 | Read it in Nightingale or Fast Company

         

        Demystifying Vaccination Metrics | Nightingale

        Six Chart Design Lessons from Visualizations of COVID-19 | Nightingale

         

        Data and Careers

        Pros and Cons of Chart Taxonomies | Nightingale

         

        Three Questions with Amanda Makulec | The Gale

         

        Five questions to ask when starting out in data viz at a consulting firm | Nightingale

        Misinformation & Responsible Visualization

        Truthers: Tiffany Dover Is Dead | NBC News

        Episode 3: Who Does That?

         

        Guest lecture on the ethics of health visualization through the lens of the COVID-19 pandemic for the Exploratorium | Watch on YouTube

         

        Rationing, Data, and the Ethics of Our Decisions | Read on BUSPH Viewpoints

      • LET'S CHAT!

      • CONTACT ME

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