Eric Lau
I am a graphics reporter at The Washington Post.
I previously led the engineering and data journalism teams at The Michigan Daily. I also worked as a data journalist and software engineer at The San Francisco Standard and The Texas Tribune.
I studied computer science and digital studies at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.
Links
Reach me on Twitter or via hello@[domain].
View my resume, my consumption.
Journalism
I tell visual stories with graphics and data.
Elon Musk gets government policy ideas from X. Here’s how. Visualized Musk’s X universe with a orbiting graphic form.
Who won the Harris-Trump debate? We asked swing-state voters. Built a live-updating page showing voters’ reactions the debate.
Pro-Harris groups embrace identity to fundraise via Zoom Reported and gathered data on “for Harris” Zoom calls.
Crypto cash is flooding the 2024 election. Here’s who's benefiting. Made an interactive beeswarm for crypto political funding.
Abortion should be permitted in cases of rape and incest, around 80% of Texas voters say in UT poll Wrote a story on abortion public opinion.
Massive power outage in Ann Arbor leaves thousands in the dark Built a power outage tracker and live-updating visuals.
West Texas farmers and ranchers fear the worst as drought, heat near 2011 records Created maps showing drought severity over time.
Daily analysis finds historically large salary disparities between three U-M campuses Analyzed data and made visuals for salary and budget records.
We looked at the 301 high schools with the most applicants to U-M. Here’s what we found Analyzed data and made visuals on university feeder schools.
Ann Arbor 2021 Special Election Results Built a tracker and page for live election results.
Engineering
I build applications, often times with interactive, photographic and geographic elements. I care about making my work accessible to people with disabilities.
Tracking Trump’s Cabinet and administration nominations Created a searchable and filterable database.
The Michigan Daily Engineered a cross-platform mobile application.
The Michigan Daily Crosswords Built infrastructure to publish and play crosswords.
Detroit neighborhoods mapping tool Built an application to crowdsource neighborhood boundaries.
The Fable of the Lion, the Butcher, and Three Kings Developed a page for a poem about Jordan.
Writing in the Digital Dark Age Created a visual story about the Internet.
Love Notes 2022 Edition Designed and developed a page of student love notes.
Other
Here is a collection of personal and academic work I've produced.
Taxonomy of a computer Wrote a visual brief on my computer usage.
September of BeReal Created a graphic showing my BeReal usage over a month.
Police Officer 
GRAMMY 
Rare Botanist Created an automated Reddit bot to monitor house plant transactions between 14,000 members.
U.S. police agencies with external investigations into injurious use of force An exploration of law enforcement data.
Talks
- Drawing Detroit: Crowdsourcing Detroit neighborhood boundaries (Detroit GIS Day 2023 — Lightning Talks)
- DTE Data Dive: A reflection on data from the February power outages (Michigan Public Service Commission Resilience Tech Conference — Data and Mapping: Gaps and Solutions)