Josh Katz, an NC State alum and creator of the most visited piece of content for The New York Times in 2013, will speak on Thursday in the Erdhal Cloyd Auditorium at D.H. Hill Library. 

While a grad student in the Department of Statistics at NC State, Katz decided to analyze in more detail results from the Harvard Dialect Survey which led Katz to create a dialect map on the use of “y’all,” “youse,” and “you guys” across the United States. After posting this initial map to the NC State website, The New York Times graphics desk discovered it and offered him an internship. 

This internship gave Katz the platform to dive deeper into the statistics and further refine the data of his initial map. After publishing the new map with The New York Times it quickly became the most popular content for the newspaper in 2013. 

Katz now works at The Upshot as a data analysis journalist. The Upshot is a New York Times section that combines statistics with data visualization. 

The discussion on Thursday will follow Katz’s career trajectory and how data visualization is improving researchers’ ability to break down complex information to the general public. The discussion will be moderated by NC State students Dan Oliver and Gino Lerebours. 

This program is part of the “Amazing Alumni” series and will begin at 3:00 p.m. on Thursday.