Miriam Quick

Data journalist

United Kingdom

Portfolio
Scientific American
RSV around the World: The Good (and Bad) News

Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) continues to affect infants and older and immunocompromised people around the world. These graphics reveal where the burden lies and what the effects of immunizations are

Bbc
08/22/2018
Can data reveal the saddest number one song ever?

When I was 15 I discovered the Smiths, a band whose name had by then long been synonymous with misery. But it was Morrissey's unique style of being miserable - coquettish and laced with Northern English humour, flipping between self-pity and irony - that appealed to my teenage self.

Scientific American
The Terrible Toll of 76 Autoimmune Diseases

The idea that organisms might attack themselves with immune with immune systems that evolved to defend them from diseases in the outside world made little sense to immunologist Paul Ehrlich. In 1901 the future Nobel laureate dismissed such a theory-he called it " horror autotoxicus "-as farfetched.

Bbc
05/25/2018
Every story in the world has one of these six basic plots

"My prettiest contribution to the culture" was how the novelist Kurt Vonnegut described his old master's thesis in anthropology, "which was rejected because it was so simple and looked like too much fun". The thesis sank without a trace, but Vonnegut continued throughout his life to promote the big idea behind it, which was: "stories have shapes which can be drawn on graph paper".

Medium
05/23/2021
Telling Stories With Data & Music

Exploring a new approach to sonification By Duncan Geere & Miriam Quick Most folks who work in data visualization would probably agree that visualization is a useful tool. Our jobs depend on the world being convinced of that, after all. But, why stop at visuals? Humans have five ( six?

Bbc
05/09/2018
The data that reveals the film industry's 'woman problem'

Only one female director - Jane Campion - has ever won the Palme d'Or, the top film at the Cannes Film Festival, a fact she calls 'insane'. And in 2017, Sofia Coppola became only the second woman ever to win the best director prize, for The Beguiled.

Bbc
South Korea's population paradox

Research by Miriam Quick. Illustrations by Valentina d'Efilippo. When countries undergo economic change, the effects of the transition aren't only financial - they have major population implications, too. This is very much the case in South Korea where, over the last three generations, the country has evolved like few others due to rapid industrialisation.

Bbc
01/08/2018
The changing buzzwords of business books

Unlock your potential. Turbocharge your productivity. Transform the ordinary into the extraordinary. These are just some of the bombastic guarantees of self-help book titles, which make up a substantial portion of the staggering 11,000 business books published in the US every year.

Bbc
The 101 people, ideas and things changing how we work today

The world of work is being struck by waves of change. Some are vast and visible - leaps in machine learning and artificial intelligence or the rise of 'do anything from anywhere' technologies. Other ideas are just beginning to emerge - like monitoring content to ensure proper gender balance, or rethinking office design to promote air quality.