DiveRSE (Diverse RSE) is a series of talks and related activities including discussion and panel sessions designed to support and raise awareness of equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) challenges and successes within the research software community. The series runs from March 2022 and is linked to the “Vive la différence - research software engineers” workshop being hosted at the Lorentz Centre in The Netherlands in April 2022.
| Resource Information | Details |
|---|---|
| Webinar Title | EDI in the R Community |
| Date and Time | 2022-05-04 15:00-16:00 UTC |
| Presenter | Heather Turner (University of Warwick) |
| Registration, Information, and Archives | https://diverse-rse.github.io/events/2022-05-04 |
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 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).
Presenter Bio
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.
