UCL R User Group

The UCL R user group is a friendly group for R users to meet, hear a talk and discuss R questions. Originally set up in 2019 for staff and postgrad students at the Bartlett School of Environment, Energy and Resources (BSEER), in 2020 we expanded to welcome the wider R community at UCL and beyond.

We currently meet online every 4 weeks on Thursdays at 1-2pm UK time online and in person. The idea is to create a friendly space for R users to come together, listen to a talk (typically 20-45 minutes) and ask questions. We aim to have a variety of talks to benefit beginners and more advanced R users. To join the group email e.webborn@ucl.ac.uk

Talk recordings are available to group members on our Microsoft Teams group. Contact me to join the group and get a link to the MS Teams group. Occasionally our talk materials are on Github repository.

2022/23 events: online at 1pm every 4th Thursday of term (approximately)

Date Title Speaker(s)
13th Oct 2022 Scientific writing and reproducible research with R Markdown Alasdair Warwick
10th Nov 2022 Using R to study hospital use for physical health in people with severe mental illness Naomi Launders
8th Dec 2022 The false positive risk: a shiny app David Colquhoun
19th Jan 2023 Dynamic documents using Quarto Ajay Koli
16th Feb 2023 Using the UK Government People’s Survey to Understand the Experiences of Civil Servants who identify as Lesbian, Gay or Bisexual – with the help of R! Tyler Elliott
23rd Mar 2023 R (or Python) for Open and Reproducible Science Andrew Mitchell
TBD Visualizing choice experiment data in ggplot Nicole Watson
25th May 2023 Using predictive modelling techniques to study the impact of COVID-19 on domestic energy consumption in GB (and how to make some nice-looking plots) Ellen Zapata-Webborn
22nd June 2023 An introduction to testing R code Ed Lowther

UCL R User Group end-of-year Meetup Wednesday 6th July 2022

Join us for an exciting talk from Victoria and Albert Museum’s Bhavesh Shah on his work as a data scientist using R. We’ll also be hosting a peer-programming session for R users to bring their code for help and feedback. Should be a great opportunity to meet other R users, find out how other people code and improve or get help with your code. Plenty of refreshments for all those who can join us in person. For all the details and to sign up check out https://www.eventbrite.com/e/ucl-r-user-group-end-of-year-meetup-tickets-379017049197

2021/22 events: online at 1pm every 4th Thursday of term (approximately)

Date (2021) Title Speaker(s)
28th Oct Introducing the group and the organisers Ellen Webborn & Scott Orr
2nd Nov In-person SOCIAL* Organised by Ellen and Scott
18th Nov Building a stochastic model of COVID-19 outbreaks in homeless accommodation settings Dan Lewer
16th Dec ~Postponed~
27th Jan The use of R in developing analytical literacy for policy Ine Steenmans
23rd Feb Working with data: Introducing and comparing data.table and dplyr Ellen Webborn & Jonathan Bourne
24th Mar Parallel R Ed Lowther

* 1-2pm Tuesday 26th October at the UCL Student Centre (inside on the main steps. An informal, bring-your-own-lunch get-together, with cake.

R Project Showcase, Thursday 17th June 2021

In June 2021 the UCL R User Group held our the first R Project Showcase - a free online event showcasing R projects by UCL students and early-career researchers (ECRs), and part of the UCL Festival of Code. Dr Kirsten McMillan from Dogs Trust gave the keynote speech and there were prizes for best student/ECR talk in each category. The book of abstracts is available here.

2020/21 talks (1pm every 4th Thursday)

Date (2020) Title Speaker(s)
1st Oct Teaching R remotely Ayrton Bourn
29th Oct Working with data: Introducing and comparing data.table and dplyr Ellen Webborn & Jonno Bourne
26th Nov Versioning code with Git Kenan Direk
Date (2021) Title Speaker(s)
28th Jan Getting help in R* Ella Kaye
18th Feb The graph is always greener: Making (better) use of colour in R Scott Orr
25th Mar Working with large datasets in R Bin Chi
15th Apr Multilevel modelling with pretty outputs in R Andrew Mitchell
13th May Innovating with R-Studio for online course delivery: lectures, practicals, thesis templates and more! Joanna Wilkin & Andrew Maclachlan
10th Jun tba

* Slides say RLadies Coventry but otherwise they’re the same

2019/20 talks

Get involved

To find out more, join the group, offer to give a talk, or provide feedback please email e.webborn@ucl.ac.uk