John D. Hunter

John D. Hunter (August 1, 1968 – August 28, 2012) was an American neurobiologist and the original author of Matplotlib.^[1]

John D. Hunter
Born	(1968-08-01)August 1, 1968 Dyersburg, Tennessee
Died	August 28, 2012(2012-08-28) (aged 44) Chicago, Illinois
Education	Princeton University University of Chicago
Known for	Matplotlib
Spouse	Miriam
Children	3
Scientific career
Fields	Neurobiology
Institutions	NumFOCUS Foundation

Biography

Hunter was brought up in Dyersburg, Tennessee, and attended The McCallie School. He graduated from Princeton University in 1990 and obtained a Ph.D. in neurobiology from the University of Chicago in 2004.^[2][3] In 2005, he joined TradeLink Securities as a Quantitative Analyst.^[4] Later, he was one of the founding directors of NumFOCUS Foundation.^[5]

Matplotlib

Hunter initially developed Matplotlib during his postdoctoral research in neurobiology to visualize electrocorticography (ECoG) data of epilepsy patients.^[4] The open-source tool emerged as the most widely used plotting library for the Python programming language and a core component of the scientific Python stack, along with NumPy, SciPy and IPython.^[6] Matplotlib was used for data visualization during the 2008 landing of the Phoenix spacecraft on Mars and for the creation of the first image of a black hole.^[7][8]

Personal life

Hunter was diagnosed with malignant colon cancer and died from cancer treatment complications on August 28, 2012.^[9][10][11] His memorial service was held at the University of Chicago's Rockefeller Chapel (also the location of his Ph.D. graduation) on October 1, 2012.^[12] He was survived by his wife Miriam and three daughters: Clara, Ava, and Rahel.^[13]

Awards

Two weeks after Hunter's death, the Python Software Foundation announced it had voted unanimously to create its Distinguished Service Award, intended as the foundation's highest honor,^[14] and issued the first award to Hunter.^[15][16]

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.^[17]