The Joint Statistics Meetings starting August 8 is the biggest meetup for statisticians in the world. Navigating the sheer quantity of interesting talks is challenging – there can be up to 50 sessions going on at a time!
To prepare for Seattle, we asked RStudio’s Chief Data Scientist Hadley Wickham for his top session picks. Here are 9 talks, admittedly biased towards R, graphics, and education, that really interested him and might interest you, too.
Check out these talks
Undergraduate Curriculum: The Pathway to Sustainable Growth in Our Discipline
Sunday, 1400-1550, CC-607
Statistics with Computing in the Evolving Undergraduate Curriculum
Sunday 1600-1750
In these back to back sessions, learn how statisticians are rising to the challenge of teaching computing and big(ger) data.
Recent Advances in Interactive Graphics for Data Analysis
Monday,1030-1220, CC-608
This is an exciting session discussing innovations in interactive visualisation, and it’s telling that all of them connect with R. Hadley will be speaking about ggvis in this session.
Preparing Students to Work in Industry
Monday, 1400-1550, CC-4C4
If you’re a student about to graduate, we bet there will be some interesting discussion for you here.
Stat computing and graphics mixer
Monday, 1800-2000, S-Ravenna
This is advertised as a business meeting, but don’t be confused. It’s the premier social event for anyone interested in computing or visualisation!
Statistical Computing and Graphics Student Paper Competition
Tuesday, 0830-1020, CC-308
Hear this year’s winners of the student paper award talk about visualising phylogenetic data, multiple change point detection, capture-recapture data and teaching intro stat with R. All four talks come with accompanying R packages!
The Statistics Identity Crisis: Are We Really Data Scientists?
Tuesday, 0830-1020, CC-609
This session, organised by Jeffrey Leek, features an all-star cast of Alyssa Frazee, Chris Volinsky, Lance Waller, and Jenny Bryan.
Doing Good with Data Viz
Wednesday, 0830-1020, CC-2B
Hear Jake Porway, Patrick Ball, and Dino Citraro talk about using data to do good. Of all the sessions, you shouldn’t miss, this is the one you really shouldn’t miss. (But unfortunately it conflicts with another great session – you have difficult choices ahead.)
Statistics at Scale: Applications from Tech Companies
Wednesday, 0830-1020, CC-204
Hilary Parker has organised a fantastic session where you’ll learn how companies like Etsy, Microsoft, and Facebook do statistics at scale. Get there early because this session is going to be PACKED!
There are hundreds of sessions at the JSM, so no doubt we’ve missed other great ones. If you think we’ve missed a “don’t miss” session, please add it to the comments so others can find it.
Visit RStudio at booth #435
In between session times you’ll find the RStudio team hanging out at booth #435 in the expo center (at the far back on the right). Please stop by and say hi! We’ll have stickers to show your R pride and printed copies of many of our cheatsheets.
See you in Seattle!
