In this seminar, Desireé Abbott talks about how leaving grad school with a master's degree was one of the best decisions she ever made and how that set her on the path to find her true passion in data visualization, a perfect marriage of being mathematical and technical while also getting to make beautiful things.

Desireé Abbott earned her B.S. in Physics from Purdue University in 2008 and her M.S. in Physics from UC Davis in 2012. Following graduation, she got her first grown-up job at JustAnswer in San Francisco as a Product Analyst. While learning the ropes of the tech world at JustAnswer and then Ancestry, Desireé discovered her passion and talent for mingling art with science in data visualization. She is now a senior data visualization consultant at Slalom, instructor of a successful course on Coursera, and almost-published author of "Everyday Data Visualization" from Manning Publications. When not making, teaching, or writing about charts and graphs, she likes to do projects around the house and try to not kill plants, as well as crochet, dabble at piano, and play Dungeons & Dragons. Desireé lives outside San Francisco in the East Bay with her husband and their fur babies: two cats and a very energetic dog.