We’re a group of experienced designers, developers, researchers, writers, and data enthusiasts who like to tackle complex, unique problems. Our favorite projects are often in unfamiliar disciplines, working with domain experts who want to explore novel solutions to interesting questions. We’ve worked with healthcare professionals to redesign the patient data pipeline, with farming advocates to build interfaces to help farmers calculate land costs, and with scientists to build tools to visualize genomes, cells, and virus outbreaks.
We’re interested in clients who want to think with us: problem solving and iterating on potential solutions while learning from their data. Sometimes we’re starting with spreadsheets or databases, sometimes it’s piles of papers, and sometimes we have to seek out the right data sources ourselves. It’s never perfect, but we love the process of untangling the mess and finding what is of value. Our projects range from six week sprints to multi-year engagements, but no matter what we’re committed to using design to build tools that are easy to use, fun to explore, and substantive in their treatment of the data.
Ben Fry received his doctoral degree from the Aesthetics + Computation Group at the MIT Media Laboratory, where his research focused on combining fields such as computer science, statistics, graphic design, and data visualization as a means for understanding information. After completing his dissertation in 2004, he spent time developing tools for visualization of genetic data as a postdoc with Eric Lander at the Eli & Edythe L. Broad Institute of MIT & Harvard. During the 2006-2007 school year, Ben was the Nierenberg Chair of Design for the Carnegie Mellon School of Design.
He is the author of Visualizing Data (O’Reilly, 2007) and the co-author, with Casey Reas, of Processing: A Programming Handbook for Visual Designers and Artists (MIT Press, 2007) and Getting Started with Processing (O’Reilly, 2010), which describe the project they co-founded in 2001.
Ben’s work was part of the Whitney Biennial in 2002 and the Cooper-Hewitt Design Triennial in 2003 and 2006. Other pieces have appeared in the Museum of Modern Art and the International Center of Photography in New York, at Ars Electronica in Linz, Austria, and in the films Minority Report and The Hulk. His information graphics have also illustrated articles for the New York Times, New York Magazine, and the journal Nature. Ben was selected as one of Fast Company’s 50 Most Influential Designers in America (2011) and as one of Slate’s Top Right (2011). He has lectured on data, design, and programming on five continents.
In 2011, Ben won the National Design Award for Interaction Design. At a White House luncheon for the honorees, he had the opportunity to meet Michelle Obama, whom he found to be very gracious but quite imposing in heels.
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Mark Schifferli likes to make life easier through computing. His programming career started at Target Analysis Group, where he processed and analyzed nonprofit revenue data. After seeing his first data visualization application, he was hooked on teasing meaningful stories from large and complicated data sets. This led him to join EnerNOC, an energy management company, where he developed applications for critical real time decision making during electrical grid emergencies.
Prior to programming, Mark contributed to various ensembles in San Francisco’s experimental music scene as a guitarist and recording engineer. Mark graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Indiana University, Bloomington, with a BA in philosophy and minors in math and French.
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Paul Cronan is an artist and designer. His path to information design was sparked early on by a fascination with geography and mapmaking. He earned a B.F.A. in Communication Design at Washington University in St. Louis. There, he focused on book arts, typography and web design, merging his interests to map the complexity of urban space in interactive ways.
Before joining the Fathom team, Paul worked as a designer in his hometown, Baltimore, and illustrated a novel about prehistoric time travel for Random House. He enjoys cycling, making typefaces and trying unusual foods.
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Libby is a graduate of Rhode Island School of Design where she studied Graphic Design, which was great for her because she loves to play with words — creative and critical writing, drawing and arranging letterforms, and exploring other methods of making meaning.
She spends most of her time on her laptop, discovering Illustrator shortcuts or experimenting with HTML and p5.js, but believes that the only true medium is the graphic T-shirt. She hopes to use her newly-acquired graphic design skills for a lifetime of making complex information meaningful, impactful, and accessible.
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Kyle Oba is a developer with a passion for computing and building software that solves problems for people. His love of programming began in the 80s, when he learned how to use the LOGO programming language to construct flowers from repeating squares. After graduating from Northwestern University with a degree in Materials Science and Engineering, he quickly realized that he wanted to work writing software.
He uses art projects as an opportunity to research technologies, and some of his projects have been featured in the Honolulu Museum of Art and the Honolulu Biennial Foundation. In his spare time, Kyle enjoys collecting photos of public signs which indicate human systems problems.
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Katherine is a Hong Kong–born creative technologist interested in the pursuit of poetic tech. She graduated from the University of Southern California with a major in Media Arts + Practice, in addition to minors in programming and linguistics. She is passionate about improving accessibility in technology and beyond.
Katherine spends her free time exploring interfaces for writing, representing, and playing with poetry. She can typically be found writing HTML, re-reading a book, or slowly knitting a sweater. She loves a good walkable city.
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Ellory Laning has always been curious about the ways in which stories are shared and remembered. She graduated from Swarthmore College with a BA in Religious Studies, where she was preoccupied with understanding how the dialogues surrounding female voices and bodies in religious texts have evolved over space, time, and culture. Through her studies, she gained a deep appreciation for the social and political dynamics at play in the transmission of narratives and information.
Prior to joining Fathom, Ellory worked as a paralegal, focusing on the financing of affordable housing and community development projects in her home state of Massachusetts. When left to her own devices, Ellory enjoys writing murder mystery parties, convincing herself that she has an above average whiskey palate, and acting as commissioner for her fantasy football-esque The Bachelor/Bachelorette league.
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Laura is a new graduate of UT Austin’s Design in Health program, where she merged her health background with human-centered design to enhance and strengthen healthcare experiences. A Florida native, she earned her B.S. in Health Science from the University of Florida and worked clinically in community medicine and cancer genetics. She is thrilled to practice at the intersection of design, people, and health; contributing to the work of making information meaningful and increasing access to health data and care.
Laura is a silent book club enthusiast, habitual traveler, and believes in the curing tonic of a Stevie Nicks song. Off the clock, she can almost always be found at a community event or with a camera in hand, seeking to capture connection.
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Chase is a developer, biologist, and computation enthusiast. He recently graduated from Harvard with a B.A. in Biology and an M.S. in Applied Math, where he researched a range of biological topics from ecosystems to microclimates. His interest in the beauty of natural systems transformed into a love for making data accessible, interpretable, and visually intuitive.
Outside of work, Chase loves listening to music, composing short songs, and attending concerts throughout the amazing venues around Boston, especially Paradise Rock Club. Otherwise, he can be found running around Allston or telling himself he’ll finally start that data journalism project he’s been thinking about for years.
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