Mike Bostock

Michael Bostock is an American computer scientist and data visualization specialist. He is one of the co-creators of Observable and a key developer of D3.js, a JavaScript library used to produce dynamic, interactive data visualizations for web browsers. He also contributed to the preceding Protovis framework.

Early life
Bostock pursued a PhD in Computer Science as a member of the Visualization Group at Stanford University and was advised by Jeffrey Heer.

In 2009, Bostock, Heer, and Vadim Ogievetsky developed and released Protovis, a JavaScript library for creating data visualizations. The use of this library among academics led to additional development, resulting in the release of D3.js in 2011.

Career
For several years, Bostock led data visualization projects at the New York Times, where he developed several notable interactive news articles. For this work, he shared the 2013, 2014, and 2015 Gerald Loeb Awards for Images/Visuals. He left his position at the Times in 2015 to focus on other projects.

Bostock went on to co-found Observable, a web platform for making and sharing data visualizations. The company launched in 2020 with a $10.5 million Series A funding round led by the venture capital firms Sequoia Capital and Acrew Capital. Bostock has served as Chief Technology Officer since Observable's founding.

Bostock has received recognition for his work. In 2013, the influential statistician Edward Tufte predicted that he will become one of the most important people for the future of data visualization, and in 2015, the New York Times' "Innovation Report" called him a "digital superstar". Bostock was also interviewed by the Data Stories podcast and presented at Eyeo 2014. He advised the data platform provider Trifacta, which was later acquired by the technology company Alteryx.