about.qmd

---
title: "About"
---

## Background

The task force was set up by the [R Foundation](https://www.r-project.org/foundation/) in December 2015 to address the underrepresentation of women and rebranded in January 2017 to accommodate more under-represented groups such as LGBT, minority ethnic groups, and people with disabilities in the R community.

The members of the task force were invited to participate based on their interest in routing for specific under-represented groups and their contributions in the area of diversity and inclusion, to reflect different genders, ethnic groups, work contexts, career stages and aspects of the R project (e.g. CRAN and Bioconductor). The task force is organised as a core team plus a number of sub-teams that focus on particular tasks as outlined below:

- **Accessibility**: Working to improve access to R materials for people with low vision, blindness, hard of hearing, deaf, and other disabilities.

- **Community**: General outreach to help people from under-represented groups get into R and develop as useRs.

- **Conferences**: Focusing on R Foundation conferences, liaising with organizers/program committee on policies and inclusion initiatives.

- **On-ramps**: Creating paths for useRs to develop their skills and make contributions to the R/BioConductor package ecosystem.

- **Social Media**: Posting to Twitter and/or Facebook, soliciting blog posts and publishing them, maintaining website.

- **Surveys**: Running and analysing community surveys, packaging up data and tools and maintaining the [Data](https://forwards.github.io/data/) page.

- **Teaching**: Methodology, materials and workshops designed for under-represented groups.


The activities of the taskforce are recorded in the [minutes of our bimonthly core team teleconferences and alternate monthly all team slackathons](https://github.com/forwards/meetings-public). We are open to new members joining one of our sub-teams. If interested, please contact rowforwards@gmail.com.

The task force is happy to engage with other individuals and organisations (such as [R-Ladies](http://r-ladies.org/)) that are concerned about diversity and inclusion and actively seek outside collaboration on specific tasks.



## Core Members

[Heather Turner](https://warwick.ac.uk/statistics/staff/academic-research/turner) - Chair and ‘On-ramps’ team leader. Heather is a Research Software Engineering Fellow in the Statistics department at the University of Warwick and is on the board of the R Foundation. ([LinkedIn](https://uk.linkedin.com/in/heathrturnr)/[Mastodon](https://fosstodon.org/@HeathrTurnr)/ [GitHub](https://github.com/hturner))


[gwynn gebeyehu](http://www.nzgwynn.com/) - Administrator and ‘Accessibility’ team leader. gwynn completed a post-doc at Harvard Business School and co-founded of the Harvard Data Science Initiative R User Group. ([Mastodon](https://mstdn.social/@nzgwynn))/[GitHub](https://github.com/nzgwynn))


[Jonathan Godfrey](https://r-resources.massey.ac.nz/BrailleR) - ‘Accessibility’ team leader. Jonathan was the first totally blind person in the world to gain employment as a Lecturer in Statistics (Massey University, NZ). ([Twitter](https://twitter.com/ajrgodfrey)/[GitHub](https://github.com/ajrgodfrey))



Kevin O’Brien - ‘Community’ team leader. Kevin is a data scientist working for a forestry company, modelling forestry resources, as well as one of the main organizers of Dublin R. ([LinkedIn](https://ie.linkedin.com/in/kobriendublin)/[Twitter](https://twitter.com/DragonflyStats)/[GitHub](https://github.com/DragonflyStats))



[Ella Kaye](https://ellakaye.rbind.io) - **'Community' team leader**. Ella is a statistician and R enthusiast. She's a founding member of RainbowR and a previous co-organiser of the Oxford R User Group. ([LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/ella-kaye-9b878248/)/[Mastodon](https://fosstodon.org/@ellakaye)/[GitHub](https://github.com/EllaKaye))


[Yanina Bellini Saibene]() - ‘Conferences’ team leader. Yanina is a professor at national universities in Argentina and Uruguay and a researcher who applies data science to the agricultural sector. She is co-founder of MetaDocencia, part of the R-Ladies Global Team, co-founder and chair of LatinR, chair of useR! 2021, chair of the 49 & 50 JAIIO, and chair of the AgroInformatics Congress. ([LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/yabellini)/[Twitter](https://twitter.com/yabellini)/[GitHub](https://github.com/yabellini))



[Noa Tamir](https://forwards.github.io/about/noatamir.com) - ‘Conferences’ team leader (on leave). Noa is a Data Science Manager, an organizer of the R-Ladies Berlin and Women in Machine Learning and Data Science Berlin Meetups, and has recently organized the satRday Berlin 2019 conference. ([LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/noatamir)/[Twitter](https://twitter.com/noatamir)/[GitHub](https://github.com/noatamir))



Saranjeet Kaur Bhogal - ‘On-ramps’ team leader. Saranjeet volunteers for the R-Ladies Global Team. She is a Statistician by training and likes to work for open source and open science. ([LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/saranjeet-kaur-48ab769b/)/[Twitter](https://twitter.com/qwertyquesting/)/[GitHub](https://github.com/SaranjeetKaur))




[Tatjana Kecojevic](https://tanjakec.github.io/) - ‘Surveys’ team leader. Tanja is a statistician, instructor and consultant. She is the founder of Sister Analyst, an NGO devoted to empowering women and other under-represented groups, in the field of data literacy and science. Tanja is also the founder and co-organiser of the R-Ladies Manchester and Belgrade chapters. Her enthusiasm for data science is matched by her commitment to inclusivity. Data skills should be accessible to anyone with a desire to discover. ([LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/tatjana-kecojevic-803704143/)/[Twitter](https://twitter.com/Tatjana_Kec)/[GitHub](https://github.com/TanjaKec))



[Andrea Sánchez-Tapia]() - ‘Surveys’ team leader. Andrea is a computational biologist, working with biodiversity informatics and open and reproducible workflows in ecology. She teaches R and other computational skills in academic and non-academic environments, and co-organizes R-Ladies Rio de Janeiro. ([Twitter](https://twitter.com/SanchezTapiaA)/[GitHub](https://github.com/AndreaSanchezTapia))




Anna Vasylytsya - ‘Surveys’ team leader. ([LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/annavasylytsya)/[GitHub](https://github.com/annnvv))



[Mine Çetinkaya-Rundel](http://mine-cr.com/) - **'Teaching' team leader**. Mine is a Professor at Duke University and Data Scientist & Professional Educator at RStudio. ([LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/minec/)/[Twitter](https://twitter.com/minebocek)/[GitHub](https://github.com/mine-cetinkaya-rundel))




[Emma Rand](https://www.york.ac.uk/biology/our-staff/emma-rand/) - **'Teaching' team leader**. Emma is a Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) at the University of York, UK and teaches reproducible data analysis to bioscientists in her institution and with the Royal Society of Biology and the Biochemical Society. ([LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/emma-rand-6b0a61a/)/[Twitter](https://twitter.com/er13_r)/[GitHub](https://github.com/3mmaRand))



## Sub Team Members

Zane Dax - **'Accessibility' team member**. ([Twitter](https://twitter.com/startrek_lt/)/[GitHub](https://github.com/PythonCoderUnicorn))


[Liz Hare](http://www.doggenetics.com) - **'Accessibility' team member**. ([LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/liz-hare-1a50925/)/[Mastodon](https://mstdn.social/@lizhare@fosstodon.org)/[GitHub](https://github.com/LizHareDogs))



Florencia Mangini - **'Accessibility' team member**. ([Twitter](https://twitter.com/manginiflor)/[GitHub](https://github.com/frm1789))



[Becca Wilson](https://drbeccawilson.co.uk) - **'Accessibility' team member**. ([LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/drbeccawilson/)/[Twitter](https://twitter.com/drbeccawilson?lang=en))




[Tania Allard](https://bitsandchips.me/) - **'Community' team member**. ([LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/taniasanchezmonroy/)/[GitHub](https://github.com/trallard))



[Damiano Cerasuolo](https://damiacer.github.io/) - **'Community' team member**. ([LinkedIn](http://www.linkedin.com/in/damianocerasuolo)/[Twitter](https://twitter.com/damiacer)/[GitHub](https://github.com/damiacer))




Joslynn Lee - **'Community' team member**. ([LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/joslynnlee/)/[Twitter](https://twitter.com/theoreticalfun)/[GitHub](https://github.com/joslynnlee))




[Samantha Toet](https://samtoet.cool/) - **'Community' team member**. ([LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/samanthatoet/)/[Twitter](https://twitter.com/Samantha_Toet)/[GitHub](https://github.com/SamanthaToet))




[Julie Josse](http://juliejosse.com/) - **'Conferences' team member**. ([LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/julie-josse-4886a2140/)/[Twitter](https://twitter.com/JulieJosseStat)/[GitHub](https://github.com/julierennes))




[Imke Mayer](https://www.imkemayer.com) - **'Conferences' team member**. ([LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/imke-mayer-426a36131)/[Twitter](https://twitter.com/imkemay)/[GitHub](https://github.com/imkemayer))




Miljenka Vuko - **'Conferences' team member**. ([LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/miljenka-vuko-946101193/)/[Twitter](https://twitter.com/miljenka_vuko)/[GitHub](https://github.com/mvuko))



[Jyoti Bhogal](https://jyotisdiary.home.blog/) - **'On-ramps' team member**. ([LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/jyoti-bhogal-a20705163/)/[Twitter](https://twitter.com/JyotiBhogal7)/[GitHub](https://github.com/JyotiBhogal))



Michael Chirico - **'On-ramps' team member**. ([Twitter](https://twitter.com/michael_chirico)/[GitHub](https://github.com/MichaelChirico))


[Maya Gans](https://maya.rbind.io/) - **'On-ramps' team member**. ([Twitter](https://twitter.com/Mayacelium)/[GitHub](https://github.com/MayaGans))



Michael Lawrence - **'On-ramps' team member**. ([LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-lawrence-74a9b482/)/[Twitter](https://twitter.com/lawremi)/[GitHub](https://github.com/lawremi))



Pavitra Chakravarty - **'Surveys' team member**. ([Twitter](https://twitter.com/genomixgmailcom)/[GitHub](https://github.com/CH-Pavitra))




[Paola Corrales](https://paocorrales.github.io/) - **'Surveys' team member**. ([Twitter](https://twitter.com/paobcorrales?lang=en)/[GitHub](https://github.com/paocorrales))





[Nujcharee Haswell](https://pedzilla.netlify.com/) - **'Surveys' team member**. ([LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/nujcharee-haswell-นุชรี-แฮสเวล-55a86729/)/[Twitter](https://twitter.com/nujcharee)/[GitHub](https://github.com/nujcharee))





Claudia Huaylla - **'Surveys' team member**. ([Twitter](https://twitter.com/clauwmath)/[GitHub](https://github.com/claudiah85))





[Di Cook](http://dicook.org) - **'Teaching' team member**. ([LinkedIn](https://au.linkedin.com/in/dianne-cook-a4877a104)/[Twitter](https://twitter.com/visnut)/[GitHub](https://github.com/dicook))




Emily Dodwell - **'Teaching' team member**. ([LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/emdodwell/)/[Twitter](https://twitter.com/emdodwell)/[GitHub](https://github.com/emdodwell))




[Isabella Gollini](https://sites.google.com/site/isabellagollini/) - **'Teaching' team member**. ([LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/isabellagollini/)/[Twitter](https://twitter.com/IsabellaGollini)/[GitHub](https://github.com/igollini))




Ritwik Mitra - **'Teaching' team member**. ([LinkedIn](www.linkedin.com/in/riikmitra)/[Twitter](https://twitter.com/riikmitra)/[GitHub](https://github.com/kiwtir))





Maria Prokofieva - **'Teaching' team member**. ([LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/mariapr/)/[Twitter](https://twitter.com/m45hap)/[GitHub](https://github.com/maria-pro))




[Joyce Robbins](http://www.joyce-robbins.com/about/) - **'Teaching' team member**. ([LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/joycerobbins/)/[Twitter](https://twitter.com/jtrnyc)/[GitHub](https://github.com/jtr13))









## Previous Members

Richard Ngamita
Lorna Maria Aine  
Stella Bollman  
Jenny Bryan  
Nic Crane  
Rudolf Debelak  
John Fox  
Jasmine Dumas  
Andrea Foulkes  
Gina Griffin  
Madlene Hamilton  
Zhian N. Kamvar  
Liz Kellogg  
Os Keyes  
Angela Li  
Gina Merchant  
David Meza  
Ileena Mitra  
Jesse Mostipak  
Shakirah Nakalungi  
Wenfeng Qin  
Augustina Ragwitz  
Maëlle Salmon  
Dorris Scott  
Tracy Shen  
David Smith  
Carolin Strobl  
Charlotte Wickham  
Hadley Wickham  
Yizhe Xu