Episode 5
Roger Peng: Sustaining data science — in classrooms, code, and conversations
Michael, Hadley, and Wes welcome Roger Peng, professor of statistics and data science at UT Austin and co-host of Not So Standard Deviations. Together they trace Roger’s journey from early R adopter to pioneering online educator and prolific podcaster. The conversation ranges from the accidental rise of “data science” as a field, to the tension between research papers and software maintenance, to what makes for meaningful, lasting creative work.
Episode notes
This episode is about more than methods — it’s about endurance, curiosity, and the conversations that carry data science forward.
What's Inside:
- Roger’s first analysis project and what it taught him about authorship and data
- Roger’s advice for students testing the waters in data science
- Why software has become the unifying language of modern statistics
- The origins of “data science” as a field and a label
- Reflections on Coursera, MOOCs, and opening education to the world
- What keeps a podcast (and a career) going strong after a decade-plus
Hosts & guests
Data Scientist and Software Engineer at Posit, PBC
Michael Chow
Chief Scientist, Posit
Hadley Wickham
Principal Architect, Posit
Wes McKinney
Professor of statistics and data science at UT Austin and co-host of Not So Standard Deviations
Roger Peng