Amanda Cox is an American journalist and head of special data projects at

USAFacts USAFacts is a non-profit organization and website that provides data and reports on the United States population, its government's finances, and government's impact on society. It was launched in 2017. History and background USAFacts was fou ...

. Until January 2022 she was the editor of the ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

data journalism Data journalism or data-driven journalism (DDJ) is a journalistic process based on analyzing and filtering large data sets for the purpose of creating or elevating a news story. Data journalism is a type of journalism reflecting the increased ...

section ''

The Upshot ''The Upshot'' is a website published by ''The New York Times'' which spreads articles combining data visualization with conventional journalistic analysis of news. History ''The Upshot'' was first announced in March 2014 and was officially launc ...

''. Cox helps develop and teach data journalism courses at the

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, the ...

School of Journalism.

Life and education

Cox was born in Michigan in 1980, and raised by her accountant parents. She earned her

bachelor's degree A bachelor's degree (from Middle Latin ''baccalaureus'') or baccalaureate (from Modern Latin ''baccalaureatus'') is an undergraduate academic degree awarded by colleges and universities upon completion of a course of study lasting three to six ...

in economics from St. Olaf College in 2001. In 2005, she received her master's degree in statistics from the

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seattle a ...

. While studying at St. Olaf, she worked for her college newspaper by filling the paper's back page with charts, tables, and commentary.

Career and research

She began her career at the ''New York Times'' as a summer intern while in graduate school. Cox worked at the Federal Reserve Board from 2001 to 2003. Cox was hired in 2005 as a graphics editor at ''The New York Times''. In her years at the Times, Cox has worked on many stories using statistics and data visualization, making the Times one of the new graphic leaders according to the ''Harvard Business Review''. On April 22, 2014, the ''New York Times'' website launched its data journalism section, ''The Upshot,'' with Amanda Cox a graphics editor. Cox was named editor of ''The Upshot'' in early 2016, called "a rare intellect" and "a crucial part of the future leadership of The Times". Her desk created the election monitoring needle for the 2016 US Presidential Election. In late 2017 Cox implemented a "live polling" feature at the Times, partnering with

Siena College Siena College is an American private Franciscan college in Loudonville, New York. Siena was founded by the Order of Friars Minor in 1937. The college was named after Bernardino of Siena, a 15th-century Italian Franciscan friar and preacher. St ...

, allowing for election results in real-time. Cox is considered one of the Times' "resident experts on polling." Cox is a leader in the field of

data visualization Data and information visualization (data viz or info viz) is an interdisciplinary field that deals with the graphic representation of data and information. It is a particularly efficient way of communicating when the data or information is num ...

, called "the Michael Phelps of infographics." Her conference talks have included ''Shaping Data for News'' at the Eyeo festival and keynoting at OpenVis Conf in 2013 and 2017. In her opening keynote in 2013, Cox said the design "wasn't ultimately about typography and whitespace, but about empathy—about creating visualizations that readers can both understand and engage with emotionally." Since Cox's tenure, the times has "led the field of innovative information graphics" and "raised the bar of journalistic interactive visualization." She has also served as the judge for data visualization competitions, and several of her data visualizations were selected for ''The Best American Infographics 2014'' and ''The Best American Infographics 2016''. In January 2022, after 16 years at the ''Times'', Cox joined USAFacts, a non-profit centered in providing a single, unified resource for public data.

Notable works

Influential articles that Cox has contributed to: * One 9/11 Tally: $3.3 Trillion * The Ebb and Flow of Movies: Box Office Receipts 1986–2007, a foremost example of a timely adoption of an

information visualization Information is an abstract concept that refers to that which has the power to inform. At the most fundamental level information pertains to the interpretation of that which may be sensed. Any natural process that is not completely random, ...

technique, the

streamgraph A streamgraph, or stream graph, is a type of stacked area graph which is displaced around a central axis, resulting in a flowing, organic shape. Unlike a traditional stacked area graph in which the layers are stacked on top of an axis, in a stream ...

for wider audiences. * The Voting Habits of Americans Like You * Where the Poor Live Longer: How Your Area Compares * You Draw It: How Family Income Predicts Children's College Chances *Money, Race, and Success: How Your School District Compares *What It Takes to Make 2.8 Million Calls to Voters *One Report, Diverging Perspectives *Live Presidential Forecast *Married couple tax bonuses and penalties *3-D chart for economy's future *Increasing rates of men who don't work *Birth year and political leanings *Price of Damien Hirst spot paintings

Awards

Cox received the

National Design Award The American National Design Awards, founded in 2000, are funded and awarded by Cooper-Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum is a design museum housed within the Andrew Carnegie Mansion in Manhattan, New Y ...

in 2009, along with her graphics team at ''The New York Times''. In 2011, Cox's team was awarded a

Malofiej award The annual Malofiej Awards for Infographics were organized by the Spanish chapter of the Society for News Design (SND-E) for accomplishments in journalistic infographics Infographics (a clipped compound of "information" and "graphics") are graph ...

for their Features Graphics Portfolio. Cox was awarded the Excellence in Statistical Reporting Award by the

American Statistical Association The American Statistical Association (ASA) is the main professional organization for statisticians and related professionals in the United States. It was founded in Boston, Massachusetts on November 27, 1839, and is the second oldest continuousl ...

in 2012. Her team has won a

Gerald Loeb Award The Gerald Loeb Award, also referred to as the Gerald Loeb Award for Distinguished Business and Financial Journalism, is a recognition of excellence in journalism, especially in the fields of business, finance and the economy. The award was estab ...

four times: in 2013 for Economics Interactives, in 2014 for Interactive Graphics, in 2016 for Making Data Visual, and in 2017 for Business Visuals.

References

External links

Amanda Cox
– bio page at ''New York Times''
''The Upshot''
section at ''New York Times''
Amanda Cox on Working With R, NYT Projects, Favorite Data
in ''Data Stories''

podcast A podcast is a program made available in digital format for download over the Internet. For example, an episodic series of digital audio or video files that a user can download to a personal device to listen to at a time of their choosing ...

on data visualization with

Enrico Bertini Enrico is both an Italian language, Italian masculine given name and a surname, Enrico means homeowner, or king, derived from ''Heinrich (given name), Heinrich'' of Germanic origin. It is also a given name in Judaeo-Spanish, Ladino. Equivalents in ...

and

Moritz Stefaner Moritz Stefaner is a German data visualization specialist. He is notable for his work for organisations like the OECD, the World Economic Forum, Skype, dpa, and Max Planck Research Society. Stefaner is a multiple winner of the Kantar Information i ...