Dr. Frank van Ham

A well-known research scientist and an IBM Master Inventor, he has more than a decade of experience in designing and deploying interactive information visualizations. Some of his past projects include Many Eyes, a web-based visualization tool that allows the user to upload data sets and generate various types of visualizations from that data; and SequoiaView, a visual disk browser that uses a visualization technique called cushion treemaps to provide the user with a single picture of the entire contents of their hard drive. After obtaining his Ph.D. in Information Visualization in Eindhoven, The Netherlands, he joined IBM Research in Cambridge, USA as a post-doctorate and later as a full-time researcher. He worked with the IBM Business Analytics division on integrating visualization into IBM's product portfolio. Data visualization is the use of: computer-supported, interactive, visual representations of data. Currently, he is with ILOG (a recent IBM acquisition) in Paris, France where he works on improving and inventing IBM products.