GVPT Maths Camp

Introductions and Set Up

Welcome

Welcome to the UMD GVPT PhD program!
Gentle introduction to some of the tools you will use throughout the program and your research
Ask any and all questions

Introductions

Starting my fourth year in the program
Focus on dependence and foreign intervention in civil conflict
Currently an Adjunct with RAND
Before starting my PhD:
- Analyst with the Australian Department of Defence
- Helped to develop the Lowy Institute’s Asia Power Index
- Worked on the Institute for Economics and Peace’s Global Peace Index and Global Terrorism Index

Learning objectives for today

Meeting your cohort
Introduction to R and friends

Why R?

A versatile programming language
- All materials used in this course were produced using R, including the website and fancy slides
Free and accessible!

R and RStudio

R

R is a free and open-source programming language and software environment for statistical computing and graphics.

RStudio

RStudio is an integrated development environment (IDE) for the R programming language.

A Tour of RStudio

Source: R4DS

Git and GitHub

Git

Git is a version control system used for tracking changes in software development projects.

GitHub

GitHub is a web-based platform for version control and collaborative software development using Git.

Summary

This session you:

Learnt about new data science tools to help you conduct replicable and reproducible political science research
Set up your data science tools