Amanda Makulec is a health data visualization designer, teacher, and speaker based in Washington DC.

She has worked with global health programs, community organizations, private sector corporations, and federal agencies to design and teach others how to create effective data visualizations, with a focus on visualizing data responsibly. Amanda currently serves as the Executive Director of the global Data Visualization Society and holds a BA in Zoology and Sociology from Miami University and an MPH from Boston University School of Public Health.

I've spent more than 15 years working with clients across sectors, from public health to digital analytics. I've seen how data visualizations and dashboards can be used as powerful communication tools, but ensuring people have the skills (and organizations have the structures) to use charts in their work is the key to making data meaningful.

Practically, that includes leading data visualization workshops, collaborating as a thought partner and designer on slides, reports, and dashboards, and consulting on bigger questions about how organizations can spark more use of data for decision making.

Connecting people across the data visualization world is one big way we can share the power of data viz with more people. I've volunteered in leadership with the global Data Visualization Society and Data Viz DC to create communities to nurture, celebrate, and advance the field for more than a decade. I've helped to build the tool agnostic communities I wish I had when I started out in data visualization more than a decade ago.