PeopleofSuperintelligence

Researcher

John Stasko

Also known as John T. Stasko, John Thomas Stasko III

John Stasko is a professor emeritus at Georgia Tech whose research in information visualization and visual analytics gives people tools to make sense of large document collections and data sets, from early machine learning methods to large language models. After a 1983 mathematics degree at Bucknell, he finished a Ph.D. in computer science at Brown and joined the Georgia Tech faculty in 1989. In 2007 he invented Jigsaw, a visual analytics system that uses early machine learning methods to build visual indexes of large document collections, and in 2013 he was General Chair of IEEE VIS in Atlanta. He became an ACM Fellow in 2022, received the IEEE VGTC Visualization Lifetime Achievement Award in 2023, and coauthored a 2024 paper on using large language models to turn natural language queries into analytic specifications for visualizations. His Georgia Tech career ended with retirement in 2025, and he is a Professor Emeritus in the School of Interactive Computing.

Born
1961
Badges

Years link to their sources.

Timeline

  1. 1983–1989

    Bucknell and Brown degrees

    He earns a B.S. in mathematics at Bucknell University in 1983, then an Sc.M. in 1985 and a Ph.D. in 1989, both in computer science, at Brown University, where Steven Reiss advises his doctorate. His thesis, TANGO: A Framework and System for Algorithm Animation, is a highly cited project in software visualization.

  2. 1989–1998

    Founding faculty of GVU

    He joins the Georgia Tech faculty in 1989 and becomes one of the founding faculty of the GVU Center. In 1998, he is lead editor of the MIT Press book Software Visualization: Programming as a Multimedia Experience.

  3. 1999

    A course on information visualization

    His course CS 7450, Information Visualization, originates in 1999 and is one of the first courses on this topic in the world. His research turns toward information visualization, and he forms the Information Interfaces Research Group.

  4. 2007–2008

    The Jigsaw visual analytics system

    He invents Jigsaw in 2007, a system that builds a visual index of a large document collection to help analysts make sense of it. It applies early machine learning methods to analyze the text and presents the results in a suite of visualizations. His 2008 paper "Jigsaw: Supporting Investigative Analysis through Interactive Visualization" appears in Information Visualization.

  5. 2012–2016

    IEEE VIS chair and IEEE Fellow

    He receives the 2012 IEEE VGTC Visualization Technical Achievement Award for his work on Jigsaw. In 2013, he serves as General Chair of the IEEE VIS conference when it is held in Atlanta, and he is named an IEEE Fellow in 2014. The ACM CHI Academy inducts him in 2016.

  6. 2022–2023

    ACM Fellow and lifetime award

    He is named an ACM Fellow in 2022 for contributions to the design, analysis, usage, and evaluation of software and information visualization. In 2023, the IEEE Visualization and Graphics Technical Community names him the recipient of its Lifetime Achievement Award.

  7. 2024

    Language models for visualization queries

    In 2024, he coauthors a paper with Subham Sah, Rishab Mitra, Arpit Narechania, Alex Endert and Wenwen Dou on a text prompt that has large language models turn natural language queries about a dataset into analytic specifications with recommended visualizations. The paper evaluates the prompt with GPT-4, and the prompt is open-source and integrated into the NL4DV toolkit.

  8. Since 2025

    Professor Emeritus at Georgia Tech

    He retires from the Georgia Tech faculty in July 2025, ending a career that began there in 1989, and becomes a Professor Emeritus in the School of Interactive Computing. In September 2025, the school holds a reception for him and announces the John Stasko Award for Teaching Excellence in his honor.

Career

  1. Since 1989Georgia Institute of TechnologyFounding faculty, Founder

Education

  1. 1989Brown UniversityPh.D. in computer science
  2. 1985Brown UniversitySc.M. in computer science
  3. 1983Bucknell UniversityB.S. in mathematics

From the biography.

  1. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology trained or employed 44 of the 187 AI major-prize winners, more than any other universityIncludes Georgia Institute of Technology. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology trained or employed 44 of the 187 AI major-prize winners, more than any other university. We compare doctorate and 5+ year employment links, career timing and current workplaces for 187 major-prize and 1,111 best-paper winners.
  2. The median h-index is 48 at universities and 14 at frontier AI labsIncludes Georgia Institute of Technology. The median h-index is 48 at universities and 14 at frontier AI labs. We compare publishing careers, recent citations, dual appointments and job moves across 2,420 university researchers and 308 frontier-lab researchers.
  3. People shaping AI work at a median of 3 organizations over a career: 3 for university starters and institute and lab starters, versus 2 for company startersIncludes Georgia Institute of Technology. Across 6,853 people shaping AI with a dated work role, we estimate a median of 3 parent organizations over a career (mean 3.6), comparing role groups, starting sectors and starting decades from the 1950s to 2020–2026.
  4. 84% of people shaping AI with recorded undergraduate and doctoral schools changed institutions for their doctorateIncludes Georgia Institute of Technology. 84% of people shaping AI with recorded undergraduate and doctoral schools changed institutions for their doctorate. Across 2,116 people with both an undergraduate degree and a doctorate recorded, we trace which undergraduate schools feed which doctoral programs, how often students stay at the same school, and how paths differ by birth-country region.

Colleagues

People named in this biography, and people with dated positions at the same organization in the same years.

Sources and credits

Photo: We have no published photo of John Stasko yet. Send us a free-licensed photo.

  1. Georgia Tech College of Computing School of Interactive Computing GT Vis Lab Information Interfaces Group faculty.cc.gatech.edu. Checked 21 October 2026.
  2. Brown CS Alum John Stasko Has Been Named ACM Fellow cs.brown.edu. Checked 21 October 2026.
  3. John Stasko - Wikipedia en.wikipedia.org. Checked 21 October 2026.
  4. School of IC Honors Decorated Professor with Namesake Award cc.gatech.edu. Checked 21 October 2026.
  5. Awards Roundup: Regents' Professor Earns IEEE VGTC Lifetime Achievement Award cc.gatech.edu. Checked 21 October 2026.
  6. John Stasko | School of Interactive Computing ic.gatech.edu. Checked 21 October 2026.
  7. VIS Lifetime Achievement Award Previous Recipients tc.computer.org. Checked 21 October 2026.
  8. Generating Analytic Specifications for Data Visualization from Natural Language Queries using Large Language Models arxiv.org. Checked 21 October 2026.