Workshop Description (Introductory Course)

R (www.r-project.org) is a free software environment for statistical computing and graphics. First, this workshop introduces basic concepts, syntax, and usage in R programming, statistical analysis, and visualization techniques. We will conduct hands-on tutorials throughout the session, giving attendees a chance to see R in action. This course is a pre-requisite for several other Collaboratory workshops.

This workshop is geared towards researchers who have little or no experience with R who want to get started with importing data into R and visualize it. This workshop will provide resources for data wrangling, visualization and cover principles and best-practices for robust and reproducible data visualization. If you are interested in any particular R/Data Visualization tool, please contact the instructor in advance and effort will be made to cover topics of community interest.

Workshop Topics

Basic R

  • Introduction to R and R Studio
  • Importing data
  • Data structures and organization

Course materials can be found here.

Day 2:

Data Wrangling and Visualization

  • Data Wrangling and Organization with dplyr
  • Guiding Principles in Data Visualization
  • Data Visualization in practice with ggplot2 and pheatmap.

Day 3:

Data Visualization and Writing Reports

  • More examples with ggplot2
  • Using Rmarkdown to create reproducible reports

Technical Requirements

Technical Requirements

Instructors

Dr. Xingbo Shang is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Roy Wollman Lab in the department of chemistry and biochemistry. His current research focuses on developing a methodology for mapping the 3D spatial transcriptome in organ-scale objects (e.g. mouse brian). He is also interested in identifying and understanding novel signaling mechanisms in cancer through a multi-omic based approach. He received a Bsc degree in chemistry from Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and PhD degree in biomedical engineering from Yale University. Email: xingboshang@g.ucla.edu

Videos

Reviews

Excellent workshop! I attended other R workshops in the past, but this was by far the clearest and most useful. Well done!

This is one of the best instructional seminars I have attended at UCLA – bravo to the instructor!

This course was perfect for my level (never used R before).

I had some familiarity with R, but the use of boolean functions was new very useful to me. This is exactly what I was hoping for, i.e. learn some new ‘R tricks’, thank you for the excellent course and keep up the great work!

Really clear, nicely paced, and provided a really supportive environment in which to ask questions. Would definitely recommend.

Class was very well organized and the instructors were amazing!

Workshop Details

Prerequisites: None
Length: 3 days, 3 hrs per day
Level: Introductory
Location: Boyer 529
Seats Available: 28

Fall 2025 Dates

Oct. 14, Oct. 15 and Oct.16
9:00 AM – 12:00 PM

REGISTRATION IS CLOSED!

UCLA and Cedars-Sinai Affiliates: Click to Enroll
Non-UCLA Affiliates: Click to Enroll
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