Eric Rodenbeck is Stamen’s founder and creative director. He has been working in and on and around interactive design since 1997, working to extend the boundaries of online media and live information visualization.

Eric led the interactive storytelling and data-driven narrative effort at Quokka Sports, illustrated and designed at Wired Magazine and Wired Books, and was a co-founder of the design collective Umwow. He is a sought-after speaker and has lectured and spoken at Yale University, Columbia University, the University of Southern California, numerous O’Reilly technology conferences, Esther Dyson’s PC Forum, OFF in Barcelona, Lift in Jeju, South Korea, and South by Southwest, among others.

Eric was born in New York City, where he studied architecture at Cooper Union, put himself through school by drawing plans for office spaces at the World Trade Center, managing numerous New York farmers’ markets, drafting architectural ornaments in the stoneyard of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, and working summers for Kenneth Snelson. He received a B.A. in the History and Philosophy of Technology from The New School for Social Research in 1994. In 2008 he was named one of Esquire Magazine’s “Best and Brightest” new designers and thinkers, and one of ID Magazine’s top 40 designers to watch. His work is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, and he sits on the Board of Directors of the Kenneth Rainin Foundation.