# Alberto Cairo

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{{Short description|Information designer and professor}}
{{about|Alberto Cairo, information designer and professor| the physiotherapist |Alberto Cairo (physiotherapist)}}
{{infobox academic|website=http://albertocairo.com/|image=File:Alberto_Cairo-IMG_5703-square.jpg|birth_date=1974|birth_place=[A Coruña](/source/A_Coru%C3%B1a), Spain|discipline=[journalism](/source/journalism)|sub_discipline=[visual journalism](/source/visual_journalism)|alma_mater=[University of Santiago de Compostela](/source/University_of_Santiago_de_Compostela)<br/>[Universitat Oberta de Catalunya](/source/Universitat_Oberta_de_Catalunya)|work_institutions=[University of Miami](/source/University_of_Miami)|notable_works=''The Functional Art''<br/>''The Truthful Art''}}
'''Alberto Cairo''' (born 1974 in [A Coruña](/source/A_Coru%C3%B1a)) is a Spanish information designer and professor. Cairo is the Knight Chair in [Visual Journalism](/source/Visual_journalism) at the School of Communication of the [University of Miami](/source/University_of_Miami).<ref name="UM-profile"/><ref name="Garcia2008" />

==Education==
Cairo holds a BA in [Journalism](/source/Journalism) from the [University of Santiago de Compostela](/source/University_of_Santiago_de_Compostela), and  MA and PhD from the [Universitat Oberta de Catalunya](/source/Universitat_Oberta_de_Catalunya) (in [Barcelona](/source/Barcelona)).<ref name="UM-profile" />

==Career==
Cairo began working as a journalist in the late 1990s, at  ''La Voz de Galicia'' (The Voice of Galicia), and then at ''Diario 16'' (Diary 16) where he worked on print graphics.<ref name="Kohnstamm2016"/> He then worked as a data-journalist and information designer at [El Mundo](/source/El_Mundo_(Spain)), Spain's second largest printed daily newspaper, where he experimented with emerging tools like [Macromedia Flash](/source/Adobe_Flash) to make multimedia infographics.<ref name="Kohnstamm2016"/><ref name="Cairo-about"/> He became the director of the paper's online component, supervising five people, at a time when very few global newspapers were doing similar graphical work.<ref name="Kohnstamm2016"/> Notable multimedia articles included the paper's coverage of the [September 11 attacks](/source/September_11_attacks) in the US in 2001, and the [2004 Madrid train bombings](/source/2004_Madrid_train_bombings).<ref name="Kohnstamm2016"/>

In 2005, Cairo was hired by the [University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill](/source/University_of_North_Carolina_at_Chapel_Hill) to teach Flash, 3D animation, and interactive graphics.<ref name="Kohnstamm2016"/> He returned to the publishing world in 2007, now based in [São Paulo](/source/S%C3%A3o_Paulo), Brazil, where he worked on graphics for the magazine ''[Época](/source/%C3%89poca_(Brazilian_magazine))''.<ref name="Kohnstamm2016"/> He was the director for Infographics and Multimedia at [Editora Globo](/source/Editora_Globo) in Brazil.<ref name="Cairo-about"/>

Cairo returned to the world of education in 2012 at the University of Miami.<ref name="Cairo-about"/> That year, he created the first [Massive Open Online Course](/source/Massive_Open_Online_Course) in journalism, "Introduction to Infographics and Data Visualization," with the [Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas](/source/Knight_Center_for_Journalism_in_the_Americas).<ref name="Cairo-about"/><ref name="DJA"/> Cairo teaches for the journalism department and the Master of Fine Arts in Interactive Media program, and is the director of the visualization program at the Frost Institute for Data Science and Computing.<ref name="Kohnstamm2016"/>

In 2016, Cairo designed a dataset that would appear as a dinosaur when visualized, emphasizing to, "Never trust summary statistics alone; always visualize your data".<ref>{{Cite web |last=Fitzmaurice |first=George |title=Same Stats, Different Graphs: Generating Datasets with Varied Appearance and Identical Statistics through Simulated Annealing |url=https://www.research.autodesk.com/publications/same-stats-different-graphs/ |access-date=2024-02-01 |website=Autodesk Research |language=en-US}}</ref> It would end up inspiring the creation of the [Datasaurus dozen](/source/Datasaurus_dozen).<ref>{{Cite web |last=Cairo |first=Alberto |title=Download the Datasaurus: Never trust summary statistics alone; always visualize your data |url=http://www.thefunctionalart.com/2016/08/download-datasaurus-never-trust-summary.html |access-date=2024-02-01 |archive-date=2024-06-20 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240620205540/http://www.thefunctionalart.com/2016/08/download-datasaurus-never-trust-summary.html |url-status=dead }}</ref>

==Books==
* ''The Functional Art: an Introduction to Information Graphics and Visualization'' (2012)<ref name="McGhee2015" /><ref name="Smith-6forGeeks"/>
* ''The Truthful Art: Data, Charts, and Maps for Communication'' (2016)<ref name="Smith-dense"/>
* '' How Charts Lie'' (2019)<ref>{{Cite news |title=Lies, damn lies and charts |url=https://www.economist.com/books-and-arts/2019/10/10/lies-damn-lies-and-charts |access-date=2024-02-01 |work=The Economist |issn=0013-0613}}</ref>

==References==
<references>

<ref name="Cairo-about">{{cite web |url=http://www.thefunctionalart.com/p/about-author.html |title=Profile of Alberto Cairo on his personal web page |access-date=2015-09-26 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150926100842/http://www.thefunctionalart.com/p/about-author.html |archive-date=2015-09-26 |url-status=dead }}</ref>

<ref name="DJA">{{Cite web |url=https://www.datajournalismawards.org/alberto-cairo/ |title=Alberto Cairo, University of Miami |website=Data Journalism Awards |language=en-US |access-date=2020-01-09}}</ref>

<ref name="Garcia2008">{{Cite news |url=https://elpais.com/diario/2008/10/09/ciberpais/1223517746_850215.html |title="No soy nada de 'gadgets'" |last=García |first=Fernando |date=2008-10-09 |website=El País |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140814090845/http://elpais.com/diario/2008/10/09/ciberpais/1223517746_850215.html |archive-date=2014-08-14 |access-date=2019-11-21}}</ref>

<ref name="McGhee2015">{{Cite web |url=https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/10/151016-data-points-alberto-cairo-interview/ |title=The "Rules" of Data Visualization Get an Update |last=McGhee |first=Geoff |date=16 October 2015 |website=National Geographic News |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190124152220/https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/10/151016-data-points-alberto-cairo-interview/ |archive-date=24 January 2019 |access-date=24 January 2019}}</ref>

<ref name="Kohnstamm2016">{{Cite news |url=https://news.microsoft.com/stories/data/ |title=Show, don't tell: Alberto Cairo, Power BI & the rise of data journalism |last=Kohnstamm |first=Thomas |date=2016 |work=Microsoft Story Labs |access-date=2020-01-09 |language=en}}</ref>

<ref name="Smith-6forGeeks">{{cite news|url=https://www.ft.com/content/63cb859c-c11e-11e6-9bca-2b93a6856354|title=The six best books for data geeks|author=Alan Smith|website=Financial Times|date=13 December 2016 |url-access=subscription|access-date=2019-01-24|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190124102106/https://www.ft.com/content/63cb859c-c11e-11e6-9bca-2b93a6856354|archive-date=2019-01-24|url-status=live}}</ref>

<ref name="Smith-dense">{{cite news|url=https://www.ft.com/content/96566916-1852-11e6-b197-a4af20d5575e|title=When dense makes sense: explaining complex data in charts|author=Alan Smith|website=Financial Times|date=18 May 2016 |url-access=subscription|access-date=2019-01-24|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190124102104/https://www.ft.com/content/96566916-1852-11e6-b197-a4af20d5575e|archive-date=2019-01-24|url-status=live}}</ref>

<ref name="UM-profile">{{cite web |url=http://ccs.miami.edu/alberto-cairo/ |title=Profile of Alberto Cairo at the School of Communication of the University of Miami |access-date=2018-03-28 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180328230956/http://ccs.miami.edu/alberto-cairo/ |archive-date=2018-03-28 |url-status=live }}</ref>

</references>

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Cairo, Alberto}}
Category:Living people
Category:American digital artists
Category:Spanish digital artists
Category:University of Miami faculty
Category:University of Santiago de Compostela alumni
Category:American male journalists
Category:Spanish male journalists
Category:American people of Spanish descent
Category:1974 births

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Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Alberto Cairo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alberto_Cairo) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alberto_Cairo?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.