Dr. Stasko received the B.S. degree in Mathematics at Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania (1983) and Sc.M. and Ph.D. degrees in Computer Science at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island (1985 and 1989). He joined the faculty here at Georgia Tech in 1989, and his primary research area is human-computer interaction.

He is the Director of the Information Interfaces Research Group. The group's research focus is to help people take advantage of information to enrich their lives. In the past ten years, the Internet and the WWW have helped to significantly expand the amount of data accessible to people. Whether someone is buying a new computer, figuring out how traffic will be on the ride home, or answering email, he or she may simply feel overwhelmed by the sheer amount of information present or may not be able to find the right information. Dr. Stasko's research group is uncovering ways to help people benefit from this flood of information. One central focus of a number of their projects is the creation of Information Visualization tools to help people understand large data sets. Another project focus is on evaluating anthropomorphic software agents/characters that are used as aids or filters in user interfaces.