Mona Chalabi

Mona once worked directly with the type of data that dictates so much in our lives in both the private and nonprofit industry before crafting her own approach in journalism. Over the past decade she has researched genetics, police violence, viral transmission, the cost of dying and so, so much more (including average testicle size). Using bold colorful drawings, viewers are invited to think about the limits and possibilities of what we can and cannot know. By rehumanizing data that feels distant and resensitizing us to data that feels close, Mona provides us with a vocabulary to express what we’ve been experiencing while also letting us know we’re not alone.

Her work has earned her a Pulitzer Prize for Illustrated Reporting and Commentary, a fellowship at the British Science Association, an Emmy nomination and recognition from the Royal Statistical Society. In recent years, her art has been exhibited at the Tate, the Brooklyn Museum, the Design Museum, and the House of Illustration. She is also the executive producer and creative director the Amazon Studios animated comedy with Ramy Youssef, #1 Happy Family USA about an Egyptian-American family in post-911 New Jersey. Mona studied international relations in Paris and Arabic in Jordan.

Mona’s debut book, Ten Lives, is a visual exploration of money in the lives of ten Americans over the course of five years, painting a portrait of how wealth (or the lack of it) shaped their experiences. Ten Lives is forthcoming in November 2026.

Mona works beside windows, sometimes in her hometown, London but usually in Brooklyn.