MIDAS African Faculty Fellow Dr. Verrah Otiende recently led a hands-on Data Visualization in R workshop for graduate students and postdocs, introducing participants to the R programming language and the ggplot2 visualization tool.
The workshop brought together researchers with varying levels of coding experience to explore how raw research data can be transformed into clean, professional charts ready for publication. Through an interactive tutorial, participants learned how to use visualization as an analytical tool to identify trends, catch errors and better understand their data throughout the research process.
Topics covered included selecting the right chart type for different research questions, building plots layer by layer, using foundational R commands to create visualizations, organizing charts for comparisons and refining graphics for publication-quality results.
The workshop was part of MIDAS’s ongoing efforts to provide hands-on training opportunities that support researchers in developing practical data science and AI skills.