Instructors

Michael Culshaw-Maurer

email
website
@MCulshawMaurer
MCMaurer

I’m a 6th-year Ph.D. candidate in the GGE, and I’m co-advised by Jay Rosenheim and Sebastian Schreiber. I study the behavioral responses of insects to natural enemies, ranging from pathogens to predators and parasitoids. I’m working on projects looking at disease-induced cannibalism in Geocoris pallens and non-consumptive effects in pea aphids, using a combination of empirical and theoretical approaches.

I came to grad school in 2015 as a complete R novice, but thanks to things like the Davis R Users Group (D-RUG), Data Science Initiative, and several ECL courses, I’ve learned a lot in the last few years. In the spring of 2018, I became a certified Software/Data Carpentries instructor and have taught several Carpentries workshops since then. I also help run D-RUG and will be teaching an undergraduate R course this winter.

My favorite part of teaching R is seeing people go from being uncomfortable or intimidated to feeling empowered and capable of expanding their research opportunities and saving time. I remember how daunting R was at first, but now I use it every day and am constantly learning new skills!


Martha Zillig

email
website
MarthaWohlfeil
@mw_avianecology

I am a 4th year PhD Candidate in Ecology studying avian biogeography in the Great Basin. I am interested in how birds are responding to climate change, and how species distributions are shaped through both biotic and abiotic factors. I get to conduct field work every summer in the Sierra Nevada and in central Nevada where I collected data on bird abundance, insect biomass, microclimate, and vegetation.

I have been using R since 2016. I was a student in the first ever R-DAVIS course 2016, and have been teaching R in some form since then. I’m very excited to be instructing this course again, and hope to convince students that having a ton of programming experience is NOT necessary to get the most out of R. In addition, I help run Davis R Users Group (D-RUG), and co-lead the GGE Statistical Support Group at UC Davis (email me for more details!).

My favorite part about teaching R is when students realize a problem they have struggled with for hours in excel can be solved with a just a few lines of code (see: me early 2016). Teaching R and helping students with data science has been an amazing opportunity, and I am excited to pass on what I have learned to new GGE students.


Teaching Assistants/Classroom Helpers

Christian John

email JepsonNomad
@JepsonNomad

I am a 3rd year student in the GGE studying bighorn sheep migration in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. I use R for analyzing animal movement and landscape-scale patterns in phenology. My recent R package, phenomap is a simple tool for mapping snowmelt and green-up timing over space. If you’re interested in movement or MODIS, come talk to me.

Christine Parisek email @caparisek

I am a 2nd year PhD student and freshwater ecologist in the Ecology Graduate Group, advised by Andrew Rypel. I currently study the mechanisms that govern lake food web structure and function across heterogeneous mountain landscapes. My interests range from local scale trophic dynamics in Sierra Nevada high elevation lakes, to landscape and global scale patterns in lake distributions.

I never thought I’d say it, but I love working in R! I used to think that people who helped me with my code must be gifted R wizaRds. Something someone said that stuck with me though, is that they’re not an R wizaRd, they’ve just had more time to make that many more coding mistakes! I was a novice in R when I began my PhD in 2018, but through the R-Davis course I gained confidence in coding and code problem-solving. Hopefully you enjoy the experience too!

Conor Higgins email

I’m a 2nd year student in the GGE in the Post Lab. I study the interactions between arctic plant and animal communities and how climate change is impacting these interactions. Specifically, I study the population dynamics of a Greenlandic muskox population and the timing of life history events (phenology) for the plants they consume. I began using R last year as a student in R-DAVIS and another statistics course, and I am still learning a lot. It has been a rewarding process figuring it out, and I feel like if I can do it, anybody can.


Course Creators/Former Instructors

Ryan Peek

email
website
@riverpeek
ryanpeek
orcid.org/0000-0002-9577-6885

I recently completed my PhD in Ecology (2018) studying ecological responses to freshwater alteration in a sensitive amphibian frog species. I work with many data types, but largely enjoy blending hydrology, genomics, and ecology. I’ve been using R since 2011, and I became a certified Software/Data Carpentry instructor in 2016. I enjoy teaching and helping run Carpentry workshops and R classes to a wide variety of folks including grad students, post docs, professors, industry researchers, and government scientists. I help coordinate the Davis R Users Group (D-RUG), and spearheaded a more organized effort at UC Davis to train fellow grad students/ecologists in data science using the R programming language. My favorite part of teaching programming/coding is seeing folks make their first plot or read in their first dataset, and recognizing that programming can be useful and fun. It is an amazing learning experience to teach, and I hope to continue trying to empower others to become better scientists and data wranglers.


Michael Koontz

email
website
@_mikoontz
mikoontz
orcid.org/0000-0002-8276-210X

I’m a 5th year PhD candidate at University of California, Davis in the Graduate Group in Ecology. I study how complex forest structure affects natural disturbances in the Sierra Nevada mountain range of California. I use satellite imagery, Google Earth Engine, small uncrewed aerial systems (sUAS), and field measurements to map trees and track the spatial patterns of tree mortality as a result of wildfires and bark beetle activity. I’ve been using R since 2012, and teaching it since 2014 to a wide variety of folks including grad students, post docs, professors, industry researchers, and government scientists. I became a certified DataCarpentry instructor in 2016. My favorite part of teaching R is helping people make the leap between novice (no programming experience and not really sure how to start) and beginner (writing their own code and knowledgeable about how to learn more).