Hans Rosling
1948 -
Hans is our adorably eccentric apologist for statistics. His web siteis brilliant for dynamic plotting of demographic trends – cell phone usage over the last two decades or child mortality over the last two centuries. Look at him talk about statistics in this video: https://youtu.be/BPt8ElTQMIg
Photo by Tobias Andersson Åkerblom
Florence Nightingale
1820-1910
The woman who started the practice of nursing is also one of the great innovators in presenting statistical information so that it could be understood by average people. The Nightingale rose diagram above was her own creation and used to communicate mortality among the British army-men fighting in Crimea. She was the first woman in London’s Royal Statistical Society.
Edward Tufte
An educator at the intersection of statistics and art. His voice is the most important in how statistics should be introduced to students in school. Perhaps students who go for a less rigorous mathematics program in high school should actually get more of Tufte than their peers.
Here is a sample of his work.