Nick Tierney | ARC Centre of Excellence for Mathematical and Statistical Frontiers

Research Fellow, Associate Investigator

Monash University

My name is Nick Tierney. I recently completed my PhD in Statistics at QUT, and am now a Research Fellow in Statistics at Monash University working with [Rob Hyndman](https://robjhyndman.com/) and [Di Cook](http://dicook.org/) in the NUMBAT group.

My research aims to improve data analysis workflow. This includes statistical modelling, calculating diagnostics, drawing inferences and making decisions. Crucial to this work is producing high quality software to accompany each research idea. My work so far has focussed on the importance of knowing your data ( [`visdat`](https://github.com/njtierney/visdat) ), and on creating principles and tools that make it easier to work with, explore, and model missing data ( [`naniar`](https://github.com/njtierney/naniar)). I have also created an optimisation model that identifies and possibly relocates facilities to maximise their coverage on a population, (`maxcovr`), and am interested in testing if commonly used diagnostics for MCMC methods are used effectively by researchers.

I love the [R programming language](https://www.r-project.org/) and how it has transformed my world. I am a proud member of the [rOpenSci](https://ropensci.org/) community, a collective that works to make science open using R, and co-host a podcast with [Saskia Freytag](https://twitter.com/trashystats) about everything #rstats named ["Credibly Curious"](https://soundcloud.com/crediblycurious), (after my blog, I guesss?).

I am always up for questions about anything to do with R and stats. I did some programming in highschool in 2006-7, and then didn't code again until 2013 -
I had not programmed in R at all, and was just finishing my undergrad in psych. I was really fortunate to have some really kind people show me the ways of R and statistics, and I want to make sure I can help people in the same way.

This website exists so I can write about what I do and engage in dialogue with statisticians, programmers, and whoever else is interested.

I am a keen rock climber and enjoy being involved in the climbing community. Over the past years I have MC'd at national and state level climbing competitions, here is a photo of me MCing at the Australian national lead climbing championships in 2015 in Brisbane.

Research Interests:

Decision trees

Missing Data

Open Access

Open data

Open Source Software Development

Statistics

Qualifications:

PhD (Statistics)

Bachelor of Psychological Sciences (Honours)

Publications

Invited talks, refereed proceedings and other conference outputs

2020

Tierney, N J., & Ram K. (2020). Data Data Data. Invited Seminar, University of Washington.

Tierney, N J. (2020). The use of colour in graphics: A journey through the body & mind to the screen. Monash Data Fluency.

Tierney, N J., & Ram K. (2020). Data Data Data. NUMBAT seminar, Monash University.

Tierney, N J. (2020). Making better spaghetti (plots): Exploring the individuals in longitudinal data with the brolgar package. RStudio Conference 2020.

Tierney, N J., & Ram K. (2020). Data Data Data. Invited talk, Sage Bionetworks.

2016

Mengersen, KL., Clifford S., Drovandi C. C., Harden F., Harden M., & Tierney N J. (2016). Bayesian Approaches in Occupational Health Surveillance. International Society for Bayesian Analysis.

Journal Articles