Jeffrey Michael Heer

Who is Jeffrey Michael Heer?

Jeffrey Heer is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Stanford University, where he works on human-computer interaction, visualization, and social computing. His research investigates the perceptual, cognitive, and social factors involved in making sense of large data collections, resulting in new interactive systems for visual analysis and communication.

Heer’s work has produced novel visualization techniques for exploring data, software tools that simplify visualization creation and customization, and collaborative analysis systems that leverage the insights of multiple analysts. He has also led the design of the Prefuse, Flare, and Protovis open-source visualization toolkits, which have been downloaded over 100,000 times; cited in over 500 research publications; and used by researchers, corporations, and thousands of data enthusiasts.

Heer received his B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in Computer Science from the University of California, Berkeley. Over the years, he has also worked at a number of research laboratories and corporations, including Xerox PARC, IBM Research, Microsoft Research, and Tableau Software. Heer is the recipient of the 2009 ACM CHI Best Paper Award, Faculty Awards from IBM and Intel, UC Berkeley's C.V. Ramamoorthy Distinguished Research Award, and in 2009 was named to MIT Technology Review's TR35, a list recognizing 35 innovators under the age of 35.