Instructor + course overview

Dr. Elijah Meyer - Hello! I’m very excited to work with you all this semester. I’ve earned a Master’s degree in statistics and a Ph.D. in statistics with a focus in education from Montana State University, and completed a teaching post-doc position at Duke University. My early research is in sports statistics, with an emphasis on spatial data visualizations to enhance sports strategy. My current work is in statistics/data science education. My focus is on improving the educational experience for both instructors and students. Current projects include creating a dynamic interactive shiny application in R to better students’ understanding of statistics and data science; creating an online data science course on Coursera; creating an national data science assessment around reasoning.

I’ve been at NC State since Fall 2024, and have been the course instructor for Statistical Methods for Researchers I (ST511). Prior to my time at NC State, I’ve taught multiple sections of Introductory Data Science at Duke University, and Introductory and Intermediate Statistics at Montana State. At Montana State, I developed their Intermediate Statistics online course, and helped integrate R into the Introductory Statistics curricula.

I prioritize community, communication, and respect in my classroom. I want to provide a space where we can freely talk about the material, embrace mistakes, and learn together throughout the semester.

When I’m not in the books, I enjoy playing disc golf, tennis, basketball, the gym, and anything else that gets me outside and active. I’m looking forward to meeting you all and having a great semester!

Office Hours	Location
Wed 2:00-3:00pm	SAS Hall 5228 /Zoom
Th 10:00-11:00am	SAS Hall 5228 /Zoom

Videos

You will see that the prepare videos will largely feature Dr. Mine Çetinkaya-Rundel. Mine is a Professor of the Practice and the Director of Undergraduate Studies at the Department of Statistical Science at Duke University. Mine is the creator and maintainer of Data Science in a Box (the curricula for ST295), and works with Posit as a Developer Educator with the Tidyverse and Quarto teams.

Dr. Çetinkaya-Rundel and I continue to work on many educational projects together, including developing a Data Science with R Coursera course, and developing a national data science assessment for introductory students.

Course

In this course, we will discover patterns in data through the use of effective data visualization tools, exploratory data analysis, and modeling techniques. We will gain experience working with real-world messy data, and use data tidying and data wrangling techniques to make the data suitable for exploration. An emphasis will be placed on creating reproducible and shareable work. This course highlights the importance of and uses version control software for individual and collaborative work. The course will focus on the R statistical computing language.

Class meeting	Location	Time
Lecture	SAS 5270	Tu & Tr 8:30 - 9:45 am