A crazy year in review

2020 will remain in our memories for a long time. It was a very complex year. Here is my balance of this year, highlighting the positive things that happened to me.

January

• My sister, nephews, and brother-in-law spent the New Year and part of their vacation at home. I didn’t know it at the time, but we weren’t going to see each other in person for the rest of the year.

• I decided to apply to the useR! 2020 Diversity Scholarships. I never thought that those things could be for me. Again, the R community in Latin America was fundamental for me to decide to apply and write a good presentation.

February

• I was awarded the useR! 2020 Diversity Scholarship in St Louis, MO, the USA. Accepting the scholarship and investing that money in this opportunity was a family decision because only the cost of the tickets necessary for the trip is equivalent to 4 months of my salary, added to the possibility of not recover all the money and not recover it quickly because of the bureaucracy and the restrictions to receive dollars in my country.

• I did one of the most useless transaction this year: I renewed my passport.

• I was editor of the special issue on AgTech of the SADIO’s Electronic Journal.

• I served 5 years as a member of the Council of the Natural Resources Research Center in Argentina. (I was the first woman to hold this position, now we are 3 of us of 6 members).

March

• My children started elementary school and kindergarten.

• I lead the R-Ladies campaign for International Women’s Day. We generate a Shiny App with the R-Ladies events materials.

• The world knows COVID-19. We started a strict quarantine. I have to keep working from home while I take care of the house and become my two children’s teacher.

• I co-founded MetaDocencia.

• I am starting to lead the translation of Teaching Teach Together.

April

• My children discovered my guitar and my chess game. They already play better than me at both.

• Home school is difficult for kids, teachers and parents; and I’m saying it from a privileged position.

• Virtual speech therapy is even more difficult, but my son is amazing.

• Writing or programming in this new reality is also tough.

May

• We did a joint virtual meeting with R-Ladies Santa Rosa, R-Ladies Buenos Aires, and R-Ladies General Pico. It was the inaugural meeting of General Pico, the second chapter of R-Ladies in my province. How beautiful this community is.

• I helped build a postgraduate proposal in Digital Agriculture.

• Writing or programming in this new reality is almost impossible.

• Teaching my children to dance the tango is a lot of fun.

June

• Ana would have been eight years old if she were alive. Pain and sadness are always there but under control. I never stop missing her.

• I participated for the first time in a panel speaking in English. Thanks to MiR Community, who made me feel comfortable enough to give it a try.

• I “visited” a chapter of R-Ladies from another country for the first time: R-Ladies La Paz. Another community that makes you feel welcome.

• I joined the useR! 2020 team as a link with R-Ladies. This allowed me to work with many R-Ladies worldwide who hosted tutorials. I wouldn’t say I like time zones.

July

• I was invited to be part of the Panel Supporting diversity in the R community of useR! 2020. It was my first participation in one of R.’s big international conferences. I speak again in English, but also in Spanish.

• I helped build a proposal for a new master’s degree in Data Science in Argentina.

• I was one of the organizer and speaker of the First R-Ladies Global Meeting for Spanish-speaking R-Ladies on How to make an unforgettable online meeting (and don’t die trying).

• Las De Sistemas interviewed me.

• I helped generate the Spanish version of Learn R for Free

August

• I became an Instructor for Software Carpentries.

• I presented a proposal for the RStudioConf::global about MetaDocencia, in English.

• I presented another proposal to RStudioConf::global about interactive tutorials in Spanish.

• I am no longer part of the R-Ladies Community Slack management team. I also asked to stop being R-Ladies' email master. I want to focus on organizing the immense amount of educational material that the community generates because I want more people will find it and take advantage of it. We will see, maybe by 2021.

• I was invited to be part of the team that organizes useR! 2021. I say yes.

September

• I started to share all my courses freely and openly. I received beautiful and grateful comments and several improvements to my material.

• I started teaching again at graduate level. I use everything I learned from Teaching Teach Together and everything we teach in MetaDocencia.

• RStudioConf::global 2021 accepted my talk on interactive tutorials. Once again, I get there thanks to the help and encouragement of the Latin American R Community.

• I asked a great ally for advice, and he shared his knowledge and network with me. I begin to learn and work in communities' organizational and foundational planning.

October

• My conference season begins: I was co-chair of LatinR 2020, of the 49 Argentine Conference of Informatic (JAIIO) and the 12th Congress of AgroInformatic.

• LatinR was a success. Completely virtual. Two weeks. Nine tutorials (in Spanish and Portuguese). Two luxury guest talks (In Spanish and English) and a awesome diversity, accessibility and inclusion panel. A reproducibility hackathon and Prerecorded talks and live question sections. Beautiful.

• The 49 JAIIO were also virtual with 13 symposia and a student contest. +500 presentations were made on 3 YouTube channels ( Room 1, Room 2, Room 3). They were a success of participation with more than 13,000 views during 10 days.

• The Agroinformatics Congress was held during 3 synchronous virtual days using Zoom + YouTube with +50 trilingual presentations (Spanish, Portuguese and English) and 2 women scientific (one Argentina and the other Brazilian) as keynotes.

• I became part of the INTA’s statistical assistance platform team as an expert in R.

November

• MetaDocencia reaches 51 courses taught to more than 700 teachers from 20 countries.

• I become one of the Global Coordinators of useR! 2021. We have an amazing team working in this conf.

• I’m starting to do some work for RStudio Education.

December

• Classes end. My child with SLI (Specific Language Impairment) reads, writes, speaks, adds, subtracts. He is amazing, smart, hardworking, and kind. And I couldn’t be more proud.

• I was offered to be the national coordinator of the INTA Agroecosystems Modeling Network. I accepted.

• We open the call for useR! 2021 Tutorials (I’m in charge).

• We could translate 100% of Teaching Teach Together into Spanish thanks to an incredible team of volunteers.

• We ensure the functioning of MetaDocencia for another year.

• I finished the year:

• being a jury of two Agro-hackathons.
• with 1 scientific paper accepted and 1 rejected. And I couldn’t write anything else.
• with 28 courses, 19 talks, and 6 interviews delivery. It seems that in a pandemic, I am better at teaching than writing and programming.

Once again, the people who accompany me on the road are the best part of the trip.