R users

Susan VanderPlas loved math but didn’t want to be a statistician like her father. To her, what he did looked boring, and she wanted to know how the brain worked. During her master’s project, she became interested in statistical graphics because it reminded her of her first love—psychology and how the brain works. Because she is red-green colorblind, she began investigating how perception differed from the raw data presented in charts and what people took from the visualizations. She also helped organize the 2019 Uncoast Unconference—a workshop and hackathon for R users in “flyover country.” Today, she is an assistant professor in statistics at the University of Nebraska and involved in the ASA Section on Statistical Graphics.