Viégas focuses her research on the social side of visualization, exploring storytelling, collective sensemaking, and online identity. A pioneer in web visualization, her work has been exhibited in galleries throughout the world.

Fernanda Viégas is a designer whose research focuses on the social side of visualization, exploring storytelling, collective sensemaking, and online identity. Viégas is known for her pioneering work on visualizing chat histories (Chat Circles), personal email archives (PostHistory and Themail) and Wikipedia activity (History Flow, with Martin Wattenberg). In 2007, Viégas and Wattenberg created Many Eyes, a web site where anyone can upload data, create interactive visualizations, and carry on conversations. Her visualization-based artwork has been exhibited at the Whitney in New York City, the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) in Boston, and in galleries in Los Angeles and São Paulo.

Fernanda received her Ph.D. and master's degrees from the Media Lab at MIT, and her bachelor's degree in Graphic Design and Art History from the University of Kansas. She is Brazilian and misses the year-round warm weather in Rio de Janeiro where she grew up.