Art Lessons: One Year as RStudio’s Artist-in-Residence

Art can be a welcoming bridge for learners and users to engage with and learn tools and skills in R.

rstudio::global 2021 learning

Art Lessons: One Year as RStudio’s Artist-in-Residence

January 21, 2021

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.

Additional Videos

Allison Horst and Megan Beckett Q&A 1

Allison Horst and Megan Beckett Q&A 2

About the speaker

Allison Horst

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.