Taiwan Data Stories is a collaborative project that was started by two Taiwanese dataviz professionals, Daisy and Julia. We use creative multimedia to share Taiwan’s rich culture with a wider audience. Our goal is to diversify the visual storytelling scene that’s often curated through a Western lens.
At the 2021 global dataviz conference, Outlier, dataviz developer Julia Janicki and dataviz designer Daisy Chung noticed a lack of Asian voices and representation in Western media. In response, Taiwan Data Stories was created as a collaborative, multimedia project that hopes to:
Expand data-driven storytelling to Taiwan and the Asian community at large, where the field is relatively new
Share Taiwan’s rich, nuanced stories, which often get lost in translation in the media’s Western-dominant narratives
Build a community of Taiwanese talent eager to learn, collaborate, connect and have fun
The developer, the designer, and the writer. This is the core team behind Taiwan Data Stories. However, we’re so proud and grateful for the many others who have contributed to our various projects! Drop us a line if you want to collaborate, pitch a story or have new ideas.
Julia Janicki (葉涵) is from Taiwan and the US, and currently lives in Paris. She grew up in Taipei and moved to the US while in highschool and did her studies there. She also lived in Japan for 5 years, in both Tokyo and Okinawa. She is a freelance data journalist, data visualization designer/developer and cartographer with a focus on environmental issues, biodiversity conservation, democracy and human rights. Some of her clients / past clients include Climate Policy Initiative, Reuters Graphics, China Dialogue, Global Fishing Watch, Environmental Investigation and various UN organizations. She was trained as a conservation biologist and remote sensing specialist, receiving two M.S. degrees from UW-Madison in Entomology and Environmental Observation and Informatics.
Daisy Chung (鍾彥儒) is an award-winning freelance science visual communicator/illustrator originally from Taiwan and New Zealand. She currently works at her home studio in Sunnyvale, CA, where she creates data and infographic designs to communicate complex science, with a focus on environmental and biological topics, and more recently on exploring creative ways to share cultural stories of Taiwan across the globe. Previously, she was the Data Visual Designer at Surgo Ventures creating data-driven visual stories addressing global health and social issues. She is a former Creative Director at wikiHow and Graphics Editor at National Geographic Magazine, where she worked with a collaborative team to engage the public through powerful visual storytelling. Daisy holds a Graduate Certificate in Science Illustration from California State University, Monterey Bay (2015), and a BA in Biological Sciences and Visual Arts at Rice University, Houston TX. Daisy aims to make science more accessible by creating engaging visuals and works directly with experts to communicate their research. Her work has appeared in The Washington Post, Scientific American, National Geographic, Cell Press, The Journal of Neuroscience, and various science and educational platforms.
Joyce Chou (周維思) is a writer and editor based in Houston, Texas. She spent her childhood in small-town New Hampshire before eventually moving to the Houston suburbs for high school and college. After earning a bachelor’s in Sociology and minoring in Poverty, Justice, and Human Capabilities at Rice University, Joyce spent a year teaching English in Taichung, Taiwan, on a Fulbright scholarship from the U.S. Department of State. She was so enamored with Taiwan, where her parents emigrated from, that she also spent a year and a half in Taipei. Besides working on content for Taiwan Data Stories, Joyce enjoys writing about growth marketing, business, and culture.