John D. Hunter (August 1, 1968 – August 28, 2012) was an American

neurobiologist A neuroscientist (or neurobiologist) is a scientist specializing in neuroscience that deals with the anatomy and function of neurons, neural circuits, and glia, and their behavioral, biological, and psychological roles in health and disease. ...

and the original author of

Matplotlib Matplotlib (portmanteau of MATLAB, plot, and library) is a Plotter, plotting Library (computer science), library for the Python (programming language), Python programming language and its Numerical analysis, numerical mathematics extension NumPy. ...

.Hunter, John D. "Matplotlib: A 2D graphics environment." Computing in science and engineering 9.3 (2007): 90-95.

Biography

Hunter was brought up in Dyersburg,

Tennessee Tennessee (, ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders Kentucky to the north, Virginia to the northeast, North Carolina t ...

, and attended

The McCallie School The McCallie School is a boys' college-preparatory school located on Missionary Ridge in Chattanooga, Tennessee, United States. The school was founded in 1905 and now has 322 boarding students in grades 9–12 and 657 day students in grades 6� ...

. He graduated from

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial ...

in 1990 and obtained a Ph.D. in neurobiology from the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, or UChi) is a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Its main campus is in the Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, Chic ...

in 2004. In 2005, he joined TradeLink Securities as a Quantitative Analyst. Later, he was one of the founding directors of NumFOCUS Foundation. NumFOCUS First Minutes of Meeting

Matplotlib

Hunter initially developed Matplotlib during his postdoctoral research in neurobiology to visualize

electrocorticography Electrocorticography (ECoG), a type of intracranial electroencephalography (iEEG), is a type of electrophysiological monitoring that uses electrodes placed directly on the exposed surface of the brain to record electrical activity from the cer ...

(ECoG) data of

epilepsy Epilepsy is a group of Non-communicable disease, non-communicable Neurological disorder, neurological disorders characterized by a tendency for recurrent, unprovoked Seizure, seizures. A seizure is a sudden burst of abnormal electrical activit ...

patients. The open-source tool emerged as the most widely used plotting library for the

Python programming language Python is a high-level, general-purpose programming language. Its design philosophy emphasizes code readability with the use of significant indentation. Python is dynamically type-checked and garbage-collected. It supports multiple prog ...

and a core component of the scientific Python stack, along with

NumPy NumPy (pronounced ) is a library for the Python programming language, adding support for large, multi-dimensional arrays and matrices, along with a large collection of high-level mathematical functions to operate on these arrays. The predeces ...

SciPy SciPy (pronounced "sigh pie") is a free and open-source Python library used for scientific computing and technical computing. SciPy contains modules for optimization, linear algebra, integration, interpolation, special functions, fast Fourier ...

and

IPython IPython (Interactive Python) is a command shell for interactive computing in multiple programming languages, originally developed for the Python programming language, that offers introspection, rich media, shell syntax, tab completion, and his ...

.Sheppard, K. (2014). Introduction to Python for econometrics, statistics and data analysis. Selfpublished, University of Oxford, version, 2. Matplotlib was used for data visualization during the 2008 landing of the

Phoenix spacecraft ''Phoenix'' was an uncrewed space probe that landed on the surface of Mars on May 25, 2008, and operated until November 2, 2008. ''Phoenix'' was operational on Mars for sols ( days). Its instruments were used to assess the local habitabilit ...

on Mars and for the creation of the first image of a

black hole A black hole is a massive, compact astronomical object so dense that its gravity prevents anything from escaping, even light. Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity predicts that a sufficiently compact mass will form a black hole. Th ...

Personal life

Hunter was diagnosed with malignant colon cancer and died from cancer treatment complications on August 28, 2012. His memorial service was held at the University of Chicago's

Rockefeller Chapel Rockefeller Chapel is a Gothic Revival chapel on the campus of the University of Chicago in Chicago, Illinois. A monumental example of Collegiate Gothic architecture, it was meant by university patron John D. Rockefeller to be the "central and d ...

(also the location of his Ph.D. graduation) on October 1, 2012. He was survived by his wife Miriam and three daughters: Clara, Ava, and Rahel.

Awards

Two weeks after Hunter's death, the

Python Software Foundation The Python Software Foundation (PSF) is an American nonprofit organization devoted to the Python programming language, launched on March 6, 2001. The mission of the foundation is to foster development of the Python community and is responsible fo ...

announced it had voted unanimously to create its Distinguished Service Award, intended as the foundation's highest honor, and issued the first award to Hunter.

Legacy

From 2013 onwards, the SciPy Conference has hosted the annual John Hunter Excellence in Plotting Contest in his honor, with a $1000 prize to continue the advancement of scientific plotting.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hunter, John D. 1968 births 2012 deaths American neuroscientists Princeton University alumni University of Chicago alumni People from Dyersburg, Tennessee Open source people Python (programming language) people