Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) in the R Community
15:00-16:00 UTC, Wednesday 4th May, 2022
Registration: via Zoom
Slides: View the talk slides
Overview
We’re delighted to welcome Dr Heather Turner from the University of Warwick, UK as our next speaker in the DiveRSE talk series.
Following the talk, there will be time for questions and general discussion.
This talk is being supported by the Society of Research Software Engineering. Register for this talk via Zoom.
Abstract
Since the beginnings of the R project around 30 years ago, a large community of users and developers has formed around it. As the community grew, a lack of diversity became increasingly apparent and in recent years there have been various efforts to make the community more diverse and inclusive. Some of these efforts have been “top-down” - lead by organizations such as the R Foundation or R Consortium - and others have been “bottom-up” - initiated by individuals, often leading to the formation of community groups or projects. In this talk I will give an overview of these initiatives and their impact. I will also discuss recent and ongoing work to improve Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) in the community of contributors to the R project itself. This work is being led by the R Contribution Working Group and is the focus of my Research Software Engineering Fellowship funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (UK).
About the speaker
Heather is a Research Software Engineering Fellow based in the Statistics Department at the University of Warwick, UK. Her career path has spanned both academia and industry, with a focus on the development of statistical code and software using R. Heather is active in community management and engagement among R users and developers. She is on the board of the R Foundation and chairs Forwards, the R Foundation taskforce for underrepresented groups. She also leads the R Contribution Working Group, which is a collaboration between the R Core Team and R community groups. In her fellowship, she is working to improve sustainability and equality, diversity and inclusion in the R project.
Registration
Register here. This talk will take place via Zoom.
A recording of the talk will also be made available on the Society of Research Software Engineering Youtube Channel following the session.