PSI VisSIG Webinar: Grammar of Graphics - theory to implementation

Joint PSI/EFSPI Visualisation SIG 'Wonderful Wednesday' Webinars

Our monthly webinar explores examples of innovative data visualisations relevant to our day to day work. Each month a new dataset is provided from a clinical trial or other relevant example, and participants are invited to submit a graphic that communicates interesting and relevant characteristics of the data.

AIMS SIG - Open-Source Lunch Bites

Topic: R Package Basics. Our monthly webinar series allows attendees to gain practical knowledge and skills in open-source coding and tools, with a focus on applications in the pharmaceutical industry. This month’s session, “R Package Basics,” will introduce the fundamentals of working with R packages—covering how to install, load, and manage them effectively to support data analysis and reproducible research. The session will provide a solid starting point, clarify common misconceptions, and offer valuable resources for continued learning.

PSI Mentoring 2026

Date: Ongoing 6 month cycle beginning late April/early May 2026 Are you a member of PSI looking to further your career or help develop others - why not sign up to the PSI Mentoring scheme? You can expand your network, improve your leadership skills and learn from more senior colleagues in the industry.

PSI Book Club Lunch and Learn: Communicating with Clarity and Confidence

If you have read Ros Atkins’ book The Art of Explanation or want to listen to the BBC’s ‘Communicator in Chief’, you are invited to join the PSI Book Club Lunch and Learn, to discuss the content and application with the author, Ros Atkins. Having written the book within the context of the news industry, Ros is keen to hear how we have applied the ideas as statisticians within drug development and clinical trials. There will be dedicated time during the webinar to ASK THE AUTHOR any questions – don’t miss out on this exclusive PSI Book Club event! Haven’t read the book yet? Pick up a copy today and join us. Explanation - identifying and communicating what we want to say - is described as an art, in the title of his book. However, the creativity comes from Ros’ discernment in identifying and describing a clear step-by-step process to follow and practice. Readers can learn Ros’ rules, developed and polished throughout his career as a journalist, to help communicate complex written or spoken information clearly.

PSI Training Course: Effective Leadership – the keys to growing your leadership capabilities

This course will consist of three online half-day workshops. The first will be aimed at building trust, the backbone of leadership and a key to becoming effective. This is key to building a solid foundation. The second will be on improving communication as a technical leader. This workshop will focus on communication strategies for different stakeholders and will involve tips on effective communication and how to develop the skills of active listening, coaching and what improv can teach us about good communication. The final workshop will bring these two components together to help leaders become more influential. This will also focus on how to use Steven Covey’s 7-Habits, in particular Habits 4, 5 and 6, which are called the habits of communication. The workshops will be interactive, allowing you to practice the concepts discussed. There will be plenty of time for questions and discussion. There will also be reflective time where you can think about what you are learning and how you might experiment with it.

Speaker	Biography	Abstract
Mine Çetinkaya-Rundel RStudio	Mine Çetinkaya-Rundel is Senior Lecturer in the School of Mathematics at University of Edinburgh, Data Scientist and Professional Educator at RStudio, and Associate Professor of the Practice position at the Department of Statistical Science at Duke University. Mine’s work focuses on innovation in statistics and data science pedagogy, with an emphasis on computing, reproducible research, student-centred learning, and open-source education as well as pedagogical approaches for enhancing retention of women and under-represented minorities in STEM. Mine also works on the OpenIntro project and she is the creator and maintainer of datasciencebox.org.	In this talk we'll introduce the Grammar of Graphics, which allows you to compose graphs by combining independent components, and the implementation of this theory in R -- the ggplot2 package. We will describe the basics of building plots, introduce commonly used geoms and statistical functions used to calculate these geoms. We will also touch on customizing ggplot2 defaults such as themes and colours. Additionally, we will highlight a few packages that are built to supplement ggplot2 by adding features that ease highlighting and annotation as well as additional geoms.

Speaker	Biography	Abstract
Mine Çetinkaya-Rundel RStudio	Mine Çetinkaya-Rundel is Senior Lecturer in the School of Mathematics at University of Edinburgh, Data Scientist and Professional Educator at RStudio, and Associate Professor of the Practice position at the Department of Statistical Science at Duke University. Mine’s work focuses on innovation in statistics and data science pedagogy, with an emphasis on computing, reproducible research, student-centred learning, and open-source education as well as pedagogical approaches for enhancing retention of women and under-represented minorities in STEM. Mine also works on the OpenIntro project and she is the creator and maintainer of datasciencebox.org.	In this talk we'll introduce the Grammar of Graphics, which allows you to compose graphs by combining independent components, and the implementation of this theory in R -- the ggplot2 package. We will describe the basics of building plots, introduce commonly used geoms and statistical functions used to calculate these geoms. We will also touch on customizing ggplot2 defaults such as themes and colours. Additionally, we will highlight a few packages that are built to supplement ggplot2 by adding features that ease highlighting and annotation as well as additional geoms.

Speaker	Biography	Abstract
Mine Çetinkaya-Rundel RStudio	Mine Çetinkaya-Rundel is Senior Lecturer in the School of Mathematics at University of Edinburgh, Data Scientist and Professional Educator at RStudio, and Associate Professor of the Practice position at the Department of Statistical Science at Duke University. Mine’s work focuses on innovation in statistics and data science pedagogy, with an emphasis on computing, reproducible research, student-centred learning, and open-source education as well as pedagogical approaches for enhancing retention of women and under-represented minorities in STEM. Mine also works on the OpenIntro project and she is the creator and maintainer of datasciencebox.org.	In this talk we'll introduce the Grammar of Graphics, which allows you to compose graphs by combining independent components, and the implementation of this theory in R -- the ggplot2 package. We will describe the basics of building plots, introduce commonly used geoms and statistical functions used to calculate these geoms. We will also touch on customizing ggplot2 defaults such as themes and colours. Additionally, we will highlight a few packages that are built to supplement ggplot2 by adding features that ease highlighting and annotation as well as additional geoms.

Speaker	Biography	Abstract
Mine Çetinkaya-Rundel RStudio	Mine Çetinkaya-Rundel is Senior Lecturer in the School of Mathematics at University of Edinburgh, Data Scientist and Professional Educator at RStudio, and Associate Professor of the Practice position at the Department of Statistical Science at Duke University. Mine’s work focuses on innovation in statistics and data science pedagogy, with an emphasis on computing, reproducible research, student-centred learning, and open-source education as well as pedagogical approaches for enhancing retention of women and under-represented minorities in STEM. Mine also works on the OpenIntro project and she is the creator and maintainer of datasciencebox.org.	In this talk we'll introduce the Grammar of Graphics, which allows you to compose graphs by combining independent components, and the implementation of this theory in R -- the ggplot2 package. We will describe the basics of building plots, introduce commonly used geoms and statistical functions used to calculate these geoms. We will also touch on customizing ggplot2 defaults such as themes and colours. Additionally, we will highlight a few packages that are built to supplement ggplot2 by adding features that ease highlighting and annotation as well as additional geoms.

Speaker	Biography	Abstract
Mine Çetinkaya-Rundel RStudio	Mine Çetinkaya-Rundel is Senior Lecturer in the School of Mathematics at University of Edinburgh, Data Scientist and Professional Educator at RStudio, and Associate Professor of the Practice position at the Department of Statistical Science at Duke University. Mine’s work focuses on innovation in statistics and data science pedagogy, with an emphasis on computing, reproducible research, student-centred learning, and open-source education as well as pedagogical approaches for enhancing retention of women and under-represented minorities in STEM. Mine also works on the OpenIntro project and she is the creator and maintainer of datasciencebox.org.	In this talk we'll introduce the Grammar of Graphics, which allows you to compose graphs by combining independent components, and the implementation of this theory in R -- the ggplot2 package. We will describe the basics of building plots, introduce commonly used geoms and statistical functions used to calculate these geoms. We will also touch on customizing ggplot2 defaults such as themes and colours. Additionally, we will highlight a few packages that are built to supplement ggplot2 by adding features that ease highlighting and annotation as well as additional geoms.

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