Art can be a welcoming bridge for learners and users to engage with and learn tools and skills in R. As RStudio’s first Artist-in-Residence, my goal has been to make the R landscape more welcoming for a broader community of users through engaging, didactic artwork. In this R, art, and heart-filled talk, I’ll share the motivation behind my R artwork and some lessons learned over the past year as Artist-in-Residence, including:
- Learning to embrace cute and credible artwork
- Art to help students engage with, learn and remember R skills
- Art for community building and support
I hope this talk inspires viewers to use, create and share more artwork, so that together we can make the R landscape feel even brighter.
![Profile picture of Allison Horst](https://posit.co/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/allison-horst.jpg)
Allison Horst PhD teaches data analysis, statistics, and presentation skills at the Bren School of Environmental Science and Management (UC Santa Barbara). In addition to courses, she leads interdepartmental R/RStudio workshops for incoming graduate students, created and teaches an online R-refresher workshops for alumni, and is a co-founder of R-Ladies Santa Barbara. In 2018 she earned the student-selected Distinguished Teaching Award at the Bren School, and in 2019 was awarded the campus-wide Distinguished Teaching Award by the UCSB Academic Senate. For her graduate research, Allison studied toxicity of engineered nanoparticles in environmental microorganisms. She is also a landscape painter, illustrator and designer.