Dianne Helen Cook is an Australian statistician renowned for her contributions to statistical graphics and the visualization of high‑dimensional data. She serves as Professor of Business Analytics in the Department of Econometrics and Business Statistics at Monash University, Melbourne, and holds the title of professor emeritus of statistics at Iowa State University, United States.
Early life and education
Cook was born in Wauchope, New South Wales, Australia. She earned a Bachelor of Science and a Diploma of Education from the University of New England in 1982. She later pursued graduate studies at Rutgers University, receiving a Master of Science in 1990 and a Ph.D. in 1993. Her doctoral dissertation, supervised jointly by Andreas Buja and Javier Cabrera, was titled Grand Tour and Projection Pursuit.
Academic career
After completing her doctorate, Cook joined the faculty of Iowa State University in 1993, where she remained until 2015. During her tenure at Iowa State, she supervised several notable doctoral students, including Hadley Wickham and Yihui Xie. In 2015, she moved to Monash University, where she leads research in data science, exploratory data analysis, and multivariate methods.
Research contributions
Cook’s research focuses on interactive and dynamic graphical methods for data analysis. She is a principal developer of the GGobi software system, an open‑source tool for interactive visual exploration of multivariate data. Together with Deborah F. Swayne, she authored Interactive and Dynamic Graphics for Data Analysis: With R and GGobi (Springer, 2007), which integrates GGobi with the R programming environment. Her work has advanced techniques such as the grand tour, projection pursuit, and other high‑dimensional visualization strategies.
Professional service and honors
Cook served as editor of the Journal of Computational and Graphical Statistics from 2016 to 2018. She is a Fellow of the American Statistical Association and an elected member of the R Foundation and the International Statistical Institute. Her contributions have been recognized through various teaching awards and research honors.
Selected publications
- Buja, A., Cook, D., & Swayne, D. F. (1996). “Interactive High‑Dimensional Data Visualization.” Journal of Computational and Graphical Statistics, 5(1), 78–99.
- Cook, D., & Swayne, D. F. (2007). Interactive and Dynamic Graphics for Data Analysis: With R and GGobi. Springer.
Cook continues to be active in statistical research, education, and the development of open‑source tools for data visualization.