Maureen Stone

Senior Principal Research Scientist

Headshot of a woman with grey hair and a purple dye streak wearing a black sweater with a colorful scarf
Combining perception and design to make Tableau beautiful and effective

About

Maureen Stone is best known for her expertise in digital color and its applications, but has broad experience in digital design, interactive graphics and user interface design. She spent the first part of her career at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center working on projects related to the then new fields of desktop publishing, digital document design and digital printing. She is the author of A Field Guide to Digital Color. Her work at Tableau Research is focused on the interaction between visual perception and design. In addition to her research, she offers both scientific and practical advice to development teams on all topics visual, from color selection to map design. She inaugurated into the  IEEE VGTC Visualization Academy in October, 2020.



She has been involved with Tableau since 2004, when she designed the initial data colors for Tableau 1.5. She joined the company in late 2011, was a founding member of the Research Team in 2012. As a member of Tableau research, she continued her work on optimizing the use of color in visualization, and in Tableau 10, she led a major redesign of the Tableau colors. She has helped lead Tableau research starting in 2015, as a Research Manager. She took over the leadership of Tableau Research in 2017.  Maureen retired in June 2002, and you can visit her at https://mcstone.github.io/  to find more information about the work that she's involved in.

Areas of interest

  • Color
  • Applied Perception
  • Algorithms for Design
  • Vision and Visualization

Publications