Recognizing Plant Cell first authors: Jamie Waese

Jamie Waese, featured first author of ePlant: Visualizing and Exploring Multiple Levels of Data for Hypothesis Generation in Plant Biology

Current Position: Senior Manager, Data Visualization Lab, Department of Enterprise Advanced Analytics, TD Bank, Toronto, Canada.

Education: PhD (2017) in Data Visualization and User Experience Design at University of Toronto. MFA (1995) in Motion Picture Producing at University of Southern California

Non-scientific Interests: Rock climbing, canoeing, guitar, being a dad.

I began my career writing and producing educational television for children. I am probably the first person to be published in The Plant Cell who also has credits on The Disney Channel and Cartoon Network. I love telling stories with pictures, especially animation where every aspect of the production must be designed and created from scratch. There are surprising similarities between making a show that people want to watch and making a data visualization tool that people want to use. I was intrigued with Dr. Nicholas Provart’s collection of data visualization tools at the BAR (http://bar.utoronto.ca) and how they could help biology researchers unravel the mysteries of life. So, I switched from thinking about how to present information so it can be understood by five-year-olds to thinking about how to present information so it can be understood by researchers. I am now applying these skills to the financial industry, where I lead a data visualization lab at TD Bank.