Isabel Meirelles

imeirelles@ocadu.ca
Professor, Tenured
Faculty of Design
information design
data visualization
design education

Isabel Meirelles is an information designer and educator whose intellectual curiosity lies in the relationships between visual thinking and visual representation. She is a professor in the faculty of design at OCAD University, Toronto, and the recipient of the 2015/2016 OCAD University Award for Distinguished Research, Scholarship and Creative Activity. From 2003 to 2104, she was on the faculty of Northeastern University’s College of Arts, Media and Design in the department of art and design, where she helped create the MFA in information design and data visualization.

In addition to writing widely on the role of data visualization in society, culture, and education, Meirelles is the author of Design for Information: An introduction to the Histories, Theories, and Best Practices Behind Effective Information Visualizations (Rockport, 2013). Her research focuses on the theoretical and experimental examination of the fundamentals underlying how information is structured, represented, and communicated in different media.

Meirelles frequently teams up with colleagues on interdisciplinary projects involving visualization of information. She has co-founded and organized numerous conferences, initiatives, and exhibitions on the topic, including Information+ (https://informationplusconference.com/), the Arts, Humanities, and Complex Network symposium at NetSci, and the Art of Networks exhibitions at Complenet. In her creative practice, she collaborates with artists and curators to design print and digital publications of their work.