This Thursday, Hilary Sargent, aka ChartGirl, will be giving a talk from 5pm-7pm at MIT in room 4-231 titled “Visualizing Information: An Alternative Route to Understanding and Explaining Complicated Information.”

I can’t speak highly enough of Hilary. She’s had a fascinating career — worked for traditional media (including The Boston Globe, among other places) before embarking on a career of private investigating/corporate intelligence (no joke). On the side, her frustration with the poor way visual information is conveyed in the media led her to start ChartGirl, a one-woman operation that Time recently named one of the 50 Best Websites in the world.

You should dive into her site on your own, but here are a small handful of recent examples of her work: “Where in the world is Satoshi Nakamoto?,” ”Taylor Swift, Maneater,” Westboro Baptist Church, aka The Worst Family Ever,” and “Guys! Stop Pissing Off Alec Baldwin!”

Details of the talk, which is part of MIT’s Comparative Media Studies/Writing Colloquium Series, are here. I’ll be doing the moderating, and if you’re in the area, I’d love to see you there.