About Auriel Fournier

Feb 9, 2015 • Auriel Fournier

I’m a PhD Candidate with the Arkansas Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit. My project is trying to tease apart the fall migration ecology of rails and how wetland management in Missouri impacts them. So I spent three months of the year on an ATV in Missouri counting/following and other wise looking for rails. more info here.

I use R every day for statistical modeling, data management, and other projects. I find myself more and more trying to help others with R and I struggle with how best to help them. I’m going through training because I want to learn how to teach people about R in a way that is more then me just taking over their computer. We’re having an SWC workshop at UA this spring, and I am hoping once I’m through training we can make it a more regular thing, there are many students just in my dept, much less on campus, who would benefit.

I have been using github for several months, but just through the GUI (which I realize makes no sense, since I am constantly on my peers about getting away from GUIs). What I found hardest about using Git the first time was feeling like I was back at square one again and remembering how hard it is to do anything when you have no idea what to type. I also wasn’t able to find help online that really answered my questions so I never had much confidence in what I was typing. As a result, I’m still doing this all throught the browser or GUI since I can’t find instructions that actually show the entire process.