Steven Franconeri is leading scientist, teacher, and speaker on visual thinking, visual communication, and the psychology of data visualization. He is a Professor of Psychology in the Weinberg College of Arts & Sciences at Northwestern, Director of the Northwestern Cognitive Science Program, as well as a Kellogg Professor of Management & Organizations by Courtesy. He is the director of the Visual Thinking Laboratory, where a team of researchers explore how leveraging the visual system - the largest single system in your brain - can help people think, remember, and communicate more efficiently. 

His undergraduate training was in computer science and cognitive science at Rutgers University, followed by a Ph.D. in Experimental Psychology from Harvard University, and postdoctoral research at the University of British Columbia. His work on both Cognitive Science and Data Visualization has been funded by the National Science Foundation, as well as the Department of Education, and the Department of Defense. He has received a prestigious National Science Foundation CAREER award, given to researchers who combine excellent research with outstanding teaching, and he has received a Psychonomic Society Early Career award for his research on visual thinking.

Visual Thinking & Communication Graph Comprehension Data Visualization

• Ph.D., 2004, Cognition, Brain, & Behavior, Harvard University, Harvard University
• M.A., 2001, Psychology; Cognition, Brain, & Behavior, Harvard University, Harvard University
• B.A., 1999, Cognitive Science and Computer Science, Rutgers University, Rutgers University

• Killam Postdoctoral Fellow, University of British Columbia, 1/1/2006
• Research Assistant, Rutgers University, 1/1/1999
• Professor, Psychology, Northwestern University
• Associate Professor, Psychology, Northwestern University, 1/1/2015
• Assistant Professor, Psychology, Northwestern University, 1/1/2012

• Early Career Award, Psychonomic Society, 2013
• CAREER Award, National Science Foundation, 2011
• Postdoctoral Fellowship, Izaak Walton Killam Memorial, 2004-2006
• Graduate Fellowship, National Defense Science and Engineering, 2001-2004
• Certificates of Distinction in Teaching, Harvard University, 2000-2001
• Phi Beta Kappa, 1999

Enterprise Leadership Program

Leadership at the enterprise level means rising to the challenge. No longer is your growth linear — it’s exponential. The focus moves past the single team or unit to the enterprise as a whole, beyond functional skills to strategic decisions based on a broader perspective. Kellogg Executive Education’s Enterprise Leadership Program prepares you to lead at height and scale and helps you develop an anticipatory mindset.

Leading with Advanced Analytics and Artificial Intelligence

Previously Named: Leading with Big Data and Analytics

Sophisticated subject matter in an easy-to-understand, accessible format equips executives with the working knowledge needed to seize opportunities that analytics, artificial intelligence and a data strategy presents and put data analytics to practical use.

Leveraging Artificial Intelligence for Innovation and Organizational Performance

Learn from Kellogg’s leading experts how to fully leverage AI for analytics, insight, strategy, and organizational growth. This program’s intuitive approach helps leaders enhance innovation, understand the impact of AI on work, and develop AI initiatives within their organizations.

The PHYSICIAN CEO™ Program
The Strategy of Leadership

Your success as a leader ultimately depends on persuading others to adopt and run with your winning ideas. This program combines cutting-edge behavioral research with compelling interactive learning to improve your ability to work with and through others to drive business success.

Visualization for Persuasion (LDEVX-458-0)
"Be persuasive in presenting your ideas. Learn to convince your clients, customers, and colleagues of the merits of your views, using the latest breakthroughs in cognitive science, computer science, and graphic design. The course covers the neuroscience behind the path from understanding to memory, the power of engaging an audience’s visual and motor systems, and the importance of leveraging existing brain networks through stories and metaphors. Through interactive exercises, the course will provide hands-on experience and tools for presenting data-based evidence with impact, across images, graphics, and visualizations of big data. Leave this course with expertise in the principles and cutting-edge methods for effective data visualization, as well as a practical toolkit for conveying your ideas in ways that are convincing, catchy, and contagious. Required prerequisite knowledge: Basic data manipulation in MS Excel. You will have the option of learning advanced visualization software (Tableau), but all assignments can be completed with a combination of Excel and PowerPoint." A video description of this course can be found here

Data Visualization (MBAi) (MBAI-925-5)
Be persuasive in presenting your ideas. Learn to convince your clients, customers, and colleagues of the merits of your views, using the latest breakthroughs in cognitive science, computer science, and graphic design. The course covers the neuroscience behind the path from understanding to memory, the power of engaging an audience's visual and motor systems, and the importance of leveraging existing brain networks through stories and metaphors. Through interactive exercises, the course will provide hands-on experience and tools for presenting data-based evidence with impact, across images, graphics, and visualizations of big data. Leave this course with expertise in the principles and cutting- edge methods for effective data visualization, as well as a practical toolkit for conveying your ideas in ways that are convincing, catchy, and contagious Format: Lecture Deliverable: Presentation file. A video description of this course can be found here

Visualization for Persuasion (LDEV-458-5)
Be persuasive in presenting your ideas. Learn to convince your clients, customers, and colleagues of the merits of your views, using the latest breakthroughs in cognitive science, computer science, and graphic design. The course covers the neuroscience behind the path from understanding to memory, the power of engaging an audience's visual and motor systems, and the importance of leveraging existing brain networks through stories and metaphors. Through interactive exercises, the course will provide hands-on experience and tools for presenting data-based evidence with impact, across images, graphics, and visualizations of big data. Leave this course with expertise in the principles and cutting- edge methods for effective data visualization, as well as a practical toolkit for conveying your ideas in ways that are convincing, catchy, and contagious Format: Lecture Deliverable: Presentation file. A video description of this course can be found here

Whole-Brain Communication (DSGN-426-0)
Present your ideas and solutions – and the data that motivates them – in a manner that is engaging, clear, and memorable. Presentations and explanations typically overwhelm an audience’s limited capacity for new information, by directing it to a limited part of the brain. Learn to communicate to the whole brain, by turning verbal messages to salient visuals, expressing abstract numbers as sensorimotor objects, leveraging existing association networks, and telling immersive stories. Learn to perform data analytics with the power of your visual system (including a primer on Tableau), and how to show the patterns that you discover to others. Techniques will be grounded in cognitive science – why our brains are limited in perceiving, learning, and storing information – as well as research in data visualization, and principles of graphic design. Course grading will be based on projects, quizzes on readings, class attendance & participation, and peer critiques.