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 complex data, particularly in application to visualizing genetic data. Ben spent the 2006-07 school year as the Nierenberg Chair at Carnegie Mellon's School of Design.
With Casey Reas of UCLA, he currently develops Processing, an open source programming environment for teaching computational design and sketching interactive media software that won a Golden Nica from the Prix Ars Electronica in 2005 and can be seen in this year's Cooper-Hewitt Triennial. In 2006, Fry received a New Media Fellowship from the Rockefeller Foundation to support the project. In 2007, Casey and Ben published a book about Processing with MIT Press.
His personal work has been shown at the Whitney Biennial, the Cooper-Hewitt Triennial, and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. His information graphics have illustrated articles for the journal Nature, New York Magazine, The New York Times Magazine and Seed.
Ben just finished a book titled "Visualizing Data", which explores how to build dynamic information graphics with the Processing environment. He currently works as a freelance designer and consultant in Cambridge, MA.
