Al Shaw
Al is a designer, developer and reporter who has been working in digital news for over a decade. He is a news applications developer at ProPublica where he uses data and maps to tell interactive stories about the environment, natural disasters and politics.
His work has been honored with a Peabody Award, a gold medal from the Society for News Design, multiple silver medals from Malofiej and a Sigma Delta Chi Award from SPJ. He is a two-time Livingston Award Finalist and was part of a team that was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.
Contact: al@shaw.al • Secure chat and PGP key: keybase.io/a_l • Twitter: @a_l • Mastodon: @a_l@mastodon.social
Select Work
Talks and Presentations
Malofiej 27, Pamplona, Spain, 2019: How visualizing flood data teaches us about our past—and our future [slides]
World Federation of Science Journalists Kavli Symposium Europe: Constructing the Future of Science Journalism in Europe, Toulouse, France, 2018: Immersive, Local, Science-Driven Journalism [slides]
NICAR 2017, Jacksonville, Florida, 2017: Working with Academics [slides]
Reporter-Forum Schweiz, Zurich, Switzerland, 2016: Die Pros von Pro Publica (Q&A Interview)
NICAR 2016, Denver, Colorado, 2016: Space Journalism! [slides], Intro to Rails [slides]
The Transparency Series, Brown Institute for Media Innovation, New York, New York, 2016: Mapping & Cartography
NICAR 2015, Atlanta, Georgia, 2015: Space Journalism! (with Brian Jacobs and Derek Watkins) [slides], Intro to Ruby [slides]
Jornadas de Periodismo de Datos y Open Data (JPD15), Madrid and Barcelona, Spain, 2015: News Applications at ProPublica [slides], Space Journalism! (workshop) [slides]
NICAR 2014, Baltimore, Maryland, 2014: Intro to Ruby [slides]
FOSS4G 2014, Portland, Oregon, 2014: Mapping for Investigations (keynote) [slides]
SRCCON, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 2014: Telling Stories with Raster Data [notes]
Knight-Mozilla OpenNews Onboarding Hack Day, San Francisco, California, 2014: Make a news app. In 2 days. (workshop) [notes] [blog post]
NICAR 2013, Louisville, Kentucky, 2013: Intro to Ruby [slides], Web Scraping with Node [slides], Casino Driven Design (lightning talk) [slides]
NICAR 2012, St. Louis, Missouri, 2012: Web Scraping with Node (lightning talk) [slides]
IRE 2012, Boston, Massachusetts, 2012: Working with FEC Data [slides]
Hacks/Hackers Buenos Aires Media Party, Buenos Aires, Argentina, 2012: News Applications at ProPublica [slides], JavaScript Through Facebook (workshop) [slides]
ONA11, Boston, Massachusetts, 2011: Covering Elections [slides]
Hacks/Hackers NYC Demo Day, New York, New York, 2010: Election Night at TPM (with Erik Hinton) [slides]