About the authors

Andreas Krause

Andreas Krause holds a PhD and an MSc in statistics and computer science. He is Chief Scientific Officer, Clinical Pharmacology & Pharmacometric Services, at Simulations Plus, Inc., providing modeling and simulation expertise to the pharmaceutical industry. His works include more than 100 peer-reviewed scientific publications.

Andreas’ scientific activities include positions as co-editor of the American Statistical Association’s section on Statistical Computing and Graphics, book review editor and board member of Computational Statistics, associate editor and editor-in-chief of Pharmaceutical Statistics, and, currently, advisory board member of Pharmaceutical Statistics and the Journal of Pharmacokinetics and Pharmacodynamics.

Andreas started using the S language in 1987, became European S-PLUS distributor and supporter in 1988, and started using R in the 1990s. He is author of The Basics of S and S-Plus (Springer, 4 editions, more than 20,000 copies sold) and editor of A picture is worth a thousand tables: graphics in life sciences (Springer, 2012).

Graphics and visualisation are long-standing topics for him, including numerous presentations and workshops on “Graphics of clinical data: the good, the bad, and the ugly” at various conferences and seminars.

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Nicola Rennie

Nicola Rennie is an academic, data scientist, and educator with a passion for effectively communicating data. She is a Lecturer in Health Data Science at Lancaster Medical School, where her research focuses on the use of statistical models to improve health outcomes. Her teaching experience covers topics including data visualisation, programming in R and Python, and how to effectively communicate the results of statistical analyses. Nicola is the author and maintainer of multiple R packages, and an active member of the R community – regularly presenting at R User Group Meetups and mentoring new members of the community.

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Brian Tarran

Brian Tarran is a writer and editor with 20 years of experience covering the research and data space. He worked for the Royal Statistical Society (RSS) from 2014 to 2024, and was editor of Significance Magazine (a joint publication of the RSS, the American Statistical Association and the Statistical Society of Australia) prior to the launch of Real World Data Science in October 2022. Brian is a former editor of Research-Live.com and was launch editor of Impact magazine, both published by the Market Research Society.

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Contributors

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Kelly Zou, Marco Geraci, Jordi Prats-Rodriguez, Marc Vandemeulebroecke, and Peter Bonate for comments on an early version of this guide. Thanks also to: