BASIC

Andrea Rau has always loved learning. When her grandfather introduced her to BASIC on his Apple IIC, she fell in love with coding, particularly because it called for both logical and creative thinking. During college, she worked with data from the National Bone Marrow Donor Program and found it so rewarding she filled the remainder of her bachelor’s degree with statistics courses, eventually earning her master’s and PhD in applied statistics. Rau accepted a permanent researcher position near Paris at the French National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food, and the Environment after graduating and made France her permanent home. There, she enjoys being at the interface of statistics and biology, working with R packages, and mentoring students.