Kieran Healy & Jonathan McPherson
Professor of Sociology at Duke University
Event date is
We were joined by two posit::conf(2025) keynote speakers, Kieran from Duke University and Jonathan from Posit, and got the chance to ask them things like: how and why open source IDEs like RStudio and Positron get made, how to do data visualization for discovery and explanation, how to use R reproducibly without losing your mind, what’s next for Posit’s IDE development, and how to remember that you are not the computer.
Featured in this episode
Kieran Healy
Professor of Sociology at Duke University
Kieran Healy is professor of sociology at Duke University in North Carolina. Much of his research has been about the social organization of exchange. His most recent book, The Ordinal Society (<strong><a target=_blank href="https://theordinalsociety.com/"> https://theordinalsociety.com/</a></strong>, co-authored with Marion Fourcade), is about how the widespread availability of continuously-produced data about people has transformed how the world is organized. He is also the author of Data Visualization: A Practical Introduction (<strong><a target=_blank href="https://socviz.co/">https://socviz.co/</a></strong>), which has helped a lot of people get started using ggplot2. (<strong><a target=_blank href="https://kieranhealy.org">https://kieranhealy.org</a></strong>)
Jonathan McPherson
Software Architect at Posit, PBC
Jonathan is a software architect at Posit Software, PBC, working primarily on the Positron IDE. In the past he's worked on the RStudio IDE at Posit, Office at Microsoft, and web applications at a nuclear site in the desert.
Libby Heeren
Data Community Manager at Posit, PBC
I'm a data science educator and community builder who wants to help you cultivate a community of practice for yourself. I talk a lot about the benefits of making genuine human connections, the power of vulnerability, and why we all benefit when we show up as our whole selves. I'm also the host of the Data Humans podcast where my motto is: data science is not one thing.
Rachael Dempsey
Community Manager at Posit, PBC
I love connecting people across the data science community to share what they're accomplishing with data and help others do the same through community discussions, industry meetups, and more.