Martin Wattenberg

My research focuses on ways technology can create connection, insight, narrative, and beauty. A particular interest is inventing visual tools to illuminate systems based on machine learning and artificial intelligence. My work is in daily use by millions of people, and has been shown in museums worldwide.

Detailed bio

I am a professor at Harvard and also a part-time member of Google Research's PAIR (People + AI Research) initiative, which I co-founded. My work, with long-time collaborator Fernanda Viégas, currently focuses on making AI technology broadly accessible and reflective of human values. At Google, my team, Fernanda, and I have also created end-user visualizations for products such as Search, YouTube, and Google Analytics.

Before joining Google, Fernanda and I founded Flowing Media, Inc., a visualization studio focused on media and consumer-oriented projects. Prior to Flowing Media, we led IBM’s Visual Communication Lab, which created the ground-breaking public visualization platform Many Eyes. I came to IBM from Dow Jones, where I was the Director of Research and Development at SmartMoney.com. My work there included some of the earliest pieces of interactive journalism.

I'm known for visualization-based artwork, which has been exhibited in venues such as the London Institute of Contemporary Arts, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the New York Museum of Modern Art.

I have a Ph.D. in mathematics from U.C. Berkeley, focusing on dynamical systems.