Broadly, I’m interested in the process of data analysis/science and how to make it easier, faster, and more fun. That’s what has lead to the development of my most popular packages like ggplot2, dplyr, tidyr, stringr. This year, I’ve been particularly interested in making it as easy as possible to get data into R. That’s lead to my work on the DBI, haven, readr, readxl, and httr packages. Please feel free to ask me anything about the craft of data science. I’m also broadly interested in the craft of programming, and the design of programming languages. I’m interested in helping people see the beauty at the heart of R and learn to master it as easily as possible. As well as a number of packages like devtools, testthat, and roxygen2, I’ve written two books along those lines: Advanced R, which teaches R as a programming language, mostly divorced from its usual application as a data analysis tool. R packages, which teaches software development best practices for R: documentation, unit testing, etc. Please ask me anything about R programming! Other things you might want to ask me about: I work at RStudio. I’m the chair of the infrastructure steering committee of the R Consortium. I’m a member of the R Foundation. I’m a fellow in the American Statistical Association. I’m an Adjunct Professor of Statistics at Rice University: that means they don’t pay me and I don’t do any work for them, but I still get to use the library. I was a full time Assistant Professor for four years before joining RStudio. These days I do a lot of programming in C++ via Rcpp. Many questions about my background, and how I got into R, are answered in my interview at priceonomics. A lot of people ask me how I can get so much done: there are some good answers at quora. In either case, feel free to ask for more details! Outside of work, I enjoy baking, cocktails, and bbq: you can see my efforts at all three on my instagram. I’m unlikely to be able to answer any terribly specific questions (I’m an amateur at all three), but I can point you to my favourite recipes and things that have helped me learn. I’ll be back at 3 PM ET to answer your questions. ASK ME ANYTHING! Update: proof that it’s me Update: taking a break. Will check back in later and answer any remaining popular/interesting questions

Hello! I am Stephen Gill, an oceanographer with NOAA. I’ve been studying sea level and tides and currents for the past 40 years. My office within NOAA is responsible for providing near real-time tides, currents, and Great Lakes water level information. These data are quality controlled to compile long-term archived data sets that can be used to produce tide and tidal current predictions among other important products such as tidal datums and sea level trends. As you may know, tides vary with the changes in the alignments of the Earth-Moon-Sun system. In general, the closer the alignment of the three bodies, the greater the tides are. One special alignment that occurs a few times each year is the perigean spring tide and we are currently experiencing one of these events right now. September 28 is especially noteworthy because Perigee and the Full Moon occur within a few hours of each other on this day, resulting in high tides being among the highest and lowest for 2015 in many coastal locations. I’ll be here from 1:00 p.m. ET (10 am PT, 5 pm UTC) to 3:00 p.m. ET to answer your questions on perigean spring tides. For more information about me, my bio can be found online at http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/news/sep15/reddit.html

Hi Reddit! I’m Sarah Tishkoff, a professor of genetics and biology at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine and School of Arts and Sciences. My lab studies human evolution, ancestry, genetic variation, and disease risk in populations around the world. We aim to answer fundamental questions about human origins, focusing on Africa’s role as the place where modern humans originated and thus the region with the most genetic diversity. We also look at complex diseases with a genetic influence, like heart disease and diabetes, and how historical evolutionary pressures may have kept these relatively common in modern populations. Next year, I’ll be joining the Board of Directors of the American Society of Human Genetics, which meets next week in Baltimore. If you’re interested in human genetics issues, check out the [meeting’s agenda](: http://www.ashg.org/2015meeting/asp/soe/webroot/soe.shtml ) and keep an eye out for the many interesting findings that will be announced. I will start answering questions at 1 pm Eastern (10 am Pacific, 6 pm UTC). Thanks Reddit, I’m wrapping up now because my kids are asking where mommy is! But I’ve really enjoyed the opportunity to share my research interests with you and if I have a chance, I’ll check back later to answer more questions. Have a great weekend The views expressed in this AMA are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the University of Pennsylvania or ASHG.

Disk Detective is a collaboration between NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and the Zooniverse Project, searching for previously undiscovered circumstellar disks and planetary systems with your help! We use citizen science to help visually inspect data from NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE), as well as other full-sky surveys. With over 30,000 scientists (and counting) helping to classify thousands of targets, we’ve discovered over 50 new disk candidates, indicators of 50 new potential planetary systems to investigate, with more to come. In addition to the citizen science analysis on our Web site, we have an extensive follow-up observation program with collaborators around the world, including observing runs and data analysis that our citizen scientists take part in! We have several members of the team here to answer your questions: Marc Kuchner: research astrophysicist at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Disk Detective science team leader Alissa Bans: research post-doc at Adler Planetarium John Debes: ESA/AURA astronomer at Space Telescope Science Institute Steven Silverberg: graduate student at University of Oklahoma and NASA Goddard Space Flight Center John Wisniewski: assistant professor of astronomy at University of Oklahoma Hugo Durantini Luca: Disk Detective “super-user” We’ll be back at 1 pm ET (10 am PT, 5 pm UTC), Ask us anything! And if you want to get involved, join us at http://www.diskdetective.org/. EDIT: Proof! EDIT #2: Hi, all! Steven here, with the rest of the team live via Internet, ready to answer your questions. Let’s get started! EDIT #3 (3:30PM EDT): We went a bit over our time here; looks like we need to sign off. We’ll be answering any other questions that may come up over the next couple of days. In the meantime, come classify subjects on the Web site! While you’re there, be sure to check out Talk, our built-in social media site for the project. And, if you happen to have made 300 classifications, email us at [email protected] to join our Advanced User Group. Thanks for all the great questions!

Hello /r/Science. We are Jason Hoyt (CEO and Co-founder) and Pete Binfield (Publisher and Co-founder) of PeerJ and PeerJ Computer Science - peer-reviewed open access academic journals offering low cost, high quality publishing for researchers in the fields of life science, medicine and computer science. Ask us anything! Jason Hoyt - As Co-founder and CEO of PeerJ I believe that research needs to be openly available if we are going to solve this century’s biggest challenges. I’ve long been an advocate of Open Access and not afraid to challenge the closed nature of the scientific publishing establishment. It is also this ethos that led me to believe that authors deserve to publish their work at a very minimal cost to make it openly available to the world. The premise when starting PeerJ was a simple one - If we can set a goal to sequence the Human Genome for $99, then why shouldn’t we demand the same goal for the publication of research? At PeerJ we have built a publishing venue that serves the needs of academic authors and not the other way around! With today’s technology there is no excuse for research to be hampered by slow publishing processes, high costs, or locked behind paywalls. By building our publishing platform in house, and open sourcing many of those components, we are able to significantly speed up the publishing process and add useful technology for authors on an ongoing basis. I firmly believe in transparency which is why PeerJ offers optional open peer review and article level metrics. Prior to founding PeerJ I was Chief Scientist and VP of R&D at Mendeley. I also hold a Ph.D. in Genetics from Stanford University, so I understand firsthand the challenges facing researchers. Peter Binfield - Having been a Publisher in academic publishing for over 20 years I have witnessed the growth of the internet and its transformative power for scientific research and communication. As Co-founder and Publisher of PeerJ I want to ensure this technology enables a democratized scientific publishing process and helps to make research openly available for all. I believe that publishing needs to be in service to the academic community to best facilitate the rapid and broad dissemination of research findings. It is still an unfortunate fact that for many scientists today their work is often hidden behind expensive publisher paywalls making it inaccessible, not just to those researchers who can’t afford the cost of the journal subscription, but also to the rest of the world’s population who may benefit from those discoveries. By making scientific research open and more shareable it in turn enables reproducibility and therefore a faster scientific discovery process. I’m proud that PeerJ is a part of making this happen. Prior to co-founding PeerJ I held senior positions at Institute of Physics, Kluwer Academic, Springer, SAGE and Public Library of Science (PLOS). At PLOS I ran PLOS ONE, and helped to develop it into the largest and one of the most innovative journals in the world. There is always more to be done but we hope our efforts at PeerJ encourage further change in the academic publishing process. We look forward to answering any questions you may have about PeerJ, open access publishing or anything else in general. Ask us anything and we’ll be happy to answer. We’ll start answering questions at 1pm ET (10 am PT, 5 pm UTC.) 1.14 pm PST 9/24/15: Thank you to you all for the insightful questions and debate - we are now signing off. We look forward to publishing more great science, freely available to the world!

Matt Jukes: I have been called the ‘Ian Holloway of Digital Government.’ You may have heard of the ONS website’s reputation, or experienced it for yourself - it’s my job to deliver a new site that changes those perceptions. I promote open source, open data and am a little militant with it comes to user research. We named our publishing system Florence, as in Nightingale, but over time Magic Roundabout characters ruled the roost in our app naming strategy. We even have a ‘Chris Giles test’ for the site. Rob Fry: I am a self proclaimed data vis geek working at the UK’s Office for National Statistics. I’m a trained statistician and love all things D3. I look for ways to make government data useful or relevant to people’s everyday lives. With my team I’ve created a pension calculator to see how long your pension pot will need to last, a quiz to challenge people perceptions of their own area, and lots of maps. I post all of this on Visual.ONS which is the ONS sister website aimed at non-experts just interested in data stories. Here’s proof that it’s us. We’re here to talk with you about UK government open data, open source, data visualization, or anything else. Ask us anything! That’s the end of our AMA! Thanks guys for all your questions, really interesting discussions and hope it was useful!

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I am Mike Lee, President of Milestone Development Services and founder of Mozaic Solutions. I am here to discuss personalized healthcare and the unique role of analytics - new technologies, methods, workflows, and regulations. Advances in analytical technology combined with our desire to live longer has generated significant excitement and opportunities in the sciences. Measurement - sensitive and fast - will be a hallmark of healthcare solutions providing early detection of disease and treatments that can be tailored to specific sub-groups (personalized healthcare). An intellectual perspective will likely focus on scientific merits of the analytical measurement and/or a specific disease. The reality is that advances in personalized healthcare will likely be led by our competitive nature via performance monitoring (i.e., athletics, competitive sport, daily testing, hourly testing) to identify a molecular signature of high performance. Once identified, such a high performing condition becomes an “asset.” Measurement then naturally focus on the protection of this so-called asset. Thus, a comprehensive series of measurements to will be required to ensure high performance via diagnostics markers to prevent injury and/or disease. The reality is that the fundamental analytics required for personalized healthcare are available today. These analytics will require significant integration and miniaturization along with informatics to assist with data process and visualization. Leadership via high performing athletes, for example, will likely provide education to the general public and generate an active interest and broad-based participation on an individual level - personalized healthcare. I’ll be back to answer questions at 12:00pm ET (9 am PT, 4 pm UTC). Feel free to ask me anything about emerging analytical technology, real-time analytics for personalized healthcare, and trends within the pharmaceutical industry. Edit 12:00 PM EST - I’m on line! Thanks to everyone for your questions! Thank you for participating in the AMA! As a thank you we’d like to extend a discount to you for my course Analysis and Interpretation of Mass Spectral Data offered through the American Chemical Society. Register between now and October 22, 2015 using the code ACSREDDIT20OFF to receive 20% off of your registration fee.

EDIT: Thanks for all the questions everyone. We appreciate you all stopping by! We are now going to stop answering in real-time, but we will stop back over the next few days to see if additional questions come in. Hi Everyone! Did you know that the vast majority of biodiversity museum specimens rarely see the light of day? They are stored in the back rooms of museums where few people get to see them or use them for scientific research. These billions specimens are housed in natural history collections around the world, where they are carefully curated according to centuries old methods. While this care has successfully preserved important collections for decades to centuries, it is now time to bring 21st century approaches to the sharing of this treasure trove. The primary topic of our conversation today will be a citizen science based transcription platform called Notes From Nature. Notes From Nature is a project that brings together people from around the world to help mobilize biodiversity information. These are experts and non-experts alike. We deal specifically with specimens from natural history museums (think of animal skins and dried, pressed plant specimens). These specimens are generally of interest to researchers and are not often seen by the public. However, the line between “the public” and domain scientists has always been grey when it comes to natural history, since informally trained people have made huge contributions to the study of biodiversity for a very long time. We will also touch on related areas such as the technology side of our field (called informatics), software tools that are being developed to accelerate digitization of museum specimens, data standards and the semantic web. We are also very interested in the research that is being done with the data and specimens that are being mobilized and how this research can be used to answer many of the major biodiversity questions of our time. We should probably mention that we are not experts in citizen science but we work with many people who are. In fact our collaborators at the Zooniverse did an AMA about a year ago (https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1pvge6/we_are_the_zooniverse_the_worlds_most_awesome_and/). We are very passionate about our work and love to talk to people about our field. Ultimately we hope that you all will get excited and will become more involved as well. We will be back at 1 pm ET (10 am PT, 5 pm UTC) to answer your questions, Ask Us Anything!

::edit:: Thank you all for your questions! It was such fun getting to talk to you and we look forward to answering more in the future! Remember to check out APECS’ website (http://www.apecs.is/) and join for free if you’re interested in getting into Polar science. You can also find contact information for some of the participants below and reach out to them individually. ::edit:: Keep those questions coming! The beauty of scientists in multiple time zones are that someone will likely be around to check. We’ll continue answering through at least 11am (EDT) tomorrow when the next AMA begins. If you want to hear more about APECS’ members research, you can also check out the #TweetYourThesis event on Twitter this Thursday (Sept., 24) starting at midnight GMT! Thank you so much for your interest in our Polar passion! ​​The Association of Polar Early Career Scientists (APECS) is here to promote Polar Week! What is ​that​?​ ​There are two International Polar Weeks each year​ – ​one in March and one in September​ ​–​ ​which coincide with the equinoxes,​ the only time ​when everywhere on Earth has 12 hours of daylight. Polar Week is a time to celebrate how the​ beauty and diversity of the​ Polar Regions and the amazing research that happens there​!​ ​This AMA is just one of many events ​being held world-wide to connect and educate the public about all things polar. ​See a full calendar of events here: http://www.apecs.is/outreach/international-polar-week/upcoming-polar-week.html ​APECS ​is an international and interdisciplinary organization for undergraduate and graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, early faculty members, educators​,​ and others with interests in ​Earth’s ​Polar Regions ​(Antarctica and the Arctic) ​​as well as the wider cryosphere. ​Our goals include creating opportunities for the development of innovative, international, and interdisciplinary collaborations among current early career polar researchers as well as recruiting, retaining​,​ and promoting the next generation of polar enthusiasts.​ Learn more here: http://www.apecs.is​ APECS members participating in this AMA are early-career polar scientists in a variety of research areas with experience working in the polar regions in remote field locations and in some native communities, studying everything from sea-ice interactions to charismatic animals​ ​like​ ​penguins.​ ​We will be answering questions related to our research, what it’s like to work in the polar regions, or even how to get into polar research. Learn more about and join APECS for free here: http://www.apecs.is/get-involved/join-apecs.html Participants: The USA Team: Alice Bradley:​ PhD student researching sea ice ocean - atmosphere interactions in environments with partial sea ice cover using unmanned aircraft as a sensing platform​.​ Website. Alex Thornton: ​Master’s student researching the ecology of Pacific walrus​ and oceanography in response to environmental change. Website. Olivia Lee: ​Postdoctoral researching using a combination of remote sensing and community observation data to understand how marine mammals adapt to changing ice conditions. Peter Peterson: ​Postdoctoral researcher of​ Arctic atmospheric chemistry, specifically how changing Arctic sea ice cover will influence the fate of atmospheric pollutants in the Arctic.​ Casey Youngflesh: ​PhD student research​ing how penguins are responding to rapid environmental change in the Antarctic. Website. ​Brit Meyers: Master’s graduate in Marine Affairs researching how policy​ and ​science ​yield​ positive outcomes for ​p​eople ​and the e​nvironment​.​ The UK Team: TJ Young: PhD student using ice-penetrating radar to study how glaciers flow and deform. Website. Sammie Buzzard: Mathematician looking at how lakes form on Antarctic ice shelves. Website. Julia Feuer-Cotter: Geographer with an interest in smellscapes and the realities and imagination of violent experiences in Alaska’s oil industry. Website Laura Hobbs: PhD student studying the behaviour of Arctic zooplankton during the Polar Night. We will be here throughout the day to answer your questions, Ask us Anything!

The International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP) conducts scientific ocean drilling expeditions throughout the world’s oceans in search of clues to Earth’s past. The current expedition is Expedition 356: Indonesian Throughflow, aboard the U.S. vessel for scientific ocean drilling, the JOIDES Resolution (http://www.joidesresolution.org). On this expedition we are investigating the interaction of currents and monsoons in and around Western Australia. We’ll do that by drilling sediment samples from six different sites in the northwest Australian shelf, to see how sediments have changed over the last 5 million years. We’ll use the data we collect to work out how the Indonesian Throughflow and Leeuwin Currents have changed over this time, and the patterns of the northwest Australian monsoon over the same period. We will also use our data to study the movement of the Australian tectonic plate. The scientific objectives are to: Look at the history of the Indonesian throughflow and Leeuwin current a. See how the flow of these currents has affected the development of reef systems Look at how these currents have affected climate a. Understand the history and changes of the Australian monsoon b. Understand the nature and timing of aridity (dryness) in Australia Construct subsidence curves a. Better visualize the vertical movement of the Australian plate b. Investigate changes in sea level c. Look at the subsidence history A team of 30 scientists from around the globe are on board for two months to work on these questions. Hand-in-hand with the amazing technology required to drill deep into the ocean floor, we are collecting the core samples that hold clues to answer these questions. Join us to ask us anything about this intriguing science, how we got here, what we hope to discover, and our lives on board the ship! We will be back at 1 pm ET (10 am PT, 5 pm UTC) to answer your questions, ask us anything!

Hi everyone! This is Alberto Cairo. I teach visualization and infographics at the University of Miami. Actually, I have an awkwardly long title: “Knight Chair in Visual Journalism at the University of Miami, and director of the visualization program at UM’s Center for Computational Science.” Try to read that without catching your breath! I’ve written “The Functional Art: An Introduction to Information Graphics and Visualization” (2012) and will publish “The Truthful Art: Data, Charts, and Maps for Communication” in March 2016. I am a journalist by training and have been an employee of several media organizations in Spain, Brazil, and the U.S. I also work as a consultant. You can follow me on Twitter at @albertocairo and read more about me and my work at TheFunctionalArt.com. I’m here today to talk with you about honesty and integrity in infographics and data visualization, but you can ask me about anything, including topics that aren’t related to graphics. For instance, my first book was not about visualization, but a collaborative essay about the best Science Fiction novels of all time. And my most widely read piece of writing doesn’t deal with visualization, either. It’s the prologue that I wrote for the Spanish edition of the third volume of George R.R. Martin’s Game of Thrones series, ‘A Storm of Swords’ (really, if you drop by Spain, get the book and you’ll see my name in the first few pages!) Here’s proof that it’s me.