Richard Saul Wurman

Richard Saul Wurman (born March 26, 1935) is an American architect and graphic designer. Wurman has written, designed, and published 90 books and created the TED conference, as well as the EG conference, TEDMED, and the WWW suite of gatherings.
Education and honors.
Wurman received both his B.Arch. and M.Arch. degrees from the University of Pennsylvania, completing his graduate degree in 1959, with the highest honors; he was awarded the Arthur Spayed Brooks Gold Medal. He has been awarded several honorary doctorates, Graham Fellowships, a Guggenheim and numerous grants from the National Endowment for the Arts as well as the Distinguished Professor at Northeastern University. He is the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award from Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum. Wurman has also been awarded the Annual Gold Medal from Trinity College, Dublin, a Gold Medal from AIGA and received the Boston Science Museum's 50th Annual Bradford Washburn Award in October, 2014. He is also a Fellow of the AIA and in the Art Director's Club Hall of Fame.
Career.
Wurman chaired the IDCA Conference in 1972, the First Federal Design assembly in 1973, and the annual American Institute of Architects (AIA) Conference in 1976. He created and chaired several conferences: TED from 1984 through 2003, TEDMED from 1995 through 2010, and the WWW conference.
He continues to work with Esri and RadicalMedia on his comparative cartographic initiative for mapping urban settings, 19.20.21, which will culminate in the creation of a network of live Urban Observatories around the world.
Wurman also supports SENS Research Foundation, a nonprofit biotechnology organization that seeks to repair the damages of aging and extend healthy lifespan.
Publications.
Wurman has written, designed, and published nearly a hundred books on divergent topics. These include the "Notebooks and Drawings of Louis I. Kahn" (1963) and "What Will Be Has Always Been" (1986), the seminal collection of the words of Kahn. 
Wurman's map-oriented and infographic guidebooks include the Access travel series (starting with "Access/LA" in 1980), several books on healthcare, and "Understanding USA" (1999). Wurman's influential "Information Anxiety" was published in 1989, with a second edition in 2000. His books about information architecture and information design include "Information Architects" (1996) and "UnderstandingUnderstanding" (2017).
Personal life.
Wurman lives in Golden Beach, Florida with his wife, novelist Gloria Nagy, and their two pet dogs. They have four children and six grandchildren.
He is Jewish.