Karl Fast is the Director of Information Architecture at Normative, a software innovation firm in Toronto. He has been working on large information problems since 1994 when he began building websites and tools for analyzing atmospheric research data. Since then, he has worked on thorny information problems with organizations ranging from startups to the Fortune 500. Across all these domains, his work has wrestled with the cognitive consequences of abundant information, ubiquitous computation, and rich interaction.

Karl is a former professor of User Experience Design at Kent State University. He has taught graduate courses and workshops on human-information interaction, information visualization, information architecture, and many other related topics. He holds a B.Sc. in Engineering Physics, along with a Master’s and Ph.D. in Library and Information Science, where his research concentrated on how interaction enables knowledge creation.

He is based in Minneapolis where he lives with his family.