Monday, June 22, 2026
8:15 AM – 4:30 PM
Partnership 3 – Room 233 (in-person only)
The Office of Research Cyberinfrastructure is hosting a one-day “Research Computing for Beginners Bootcamp” designed to introduce participants to essential tools, including Git, Python, R, and Data Visualization techniques. This bootcamp requires no prior experience and is structured to provide a beginner-friendly learning environment.
Due to limited seating capacity preference will be given to graduate students.
Session 1: Git Version Control for Beginners
Learn the basics of Git (https://www.git-scm.com/) and version control using the command line in this hands-on session. Whether you’re working on a coding project alone or with other people, version control can save you time and effort. To participate in the hands-on portion of this session, your own laptop should be able to install the Git software.
If you plan to use a device managed by the university or another organization, please request assistance from your IT department and visit the setup page for the lab (https://swcarpentry.github.io/git-novice/#installing-git), choose your operating system, and attempt to install Git or Git+Git Bash (Windows only) prior to attending the workshop.
Session 2: A Gentle Introduction to Python for Research Computing
What does it take to go from “I’ve never programmed” to writing your first Python script? Python is a versatile programming language that has grown in popularity, particularly with the rise of machine learning and artificial intelligence. This session introduces the fundamental Python programming concepts needed to perform a simple research task, including loading data, conducting basic analysis, and saving results. Participants will gain exposure to essential topics such as Python environment management, the differences between using the Python REPL and scripts, working with variables and functions, creating basic plots, and handling data input and output.
Session 3: Introduction to Programming in R
Learn basic programming in R through practical data pre-processing tasks. Participants will learn how to use R to import, inspect, clean, transform, summarize, reshape, and export messy datasets. The session will include guided demonstrations and hands-on exercises where attendees practice writing R code using common tools and packages.
Topics include:
- Introduction to R
- Importing and inspecting data
- Cleaning column names and fixing data types
- Filtering, selecting, mutating, and summarizing data with dplyr
- Handling missing values, duplicates, and inconsistent categories
- Reshaping data with tidyr
- Exporting cleaned data for analysis
Session 4: Data Visualization using Python
Learn how to analyze and visualize complex datasets using python and how to use MatPlotLib, Plotly and Seaborn libraries to create interesting plots, charts and dashboards. Hands-on example will start simple and progress to professional quality graphics as you try to understand bike usage data in NYC.
**** Please note: All the sessions have a hands-on component. To participate in the hands-on exercises during the session, you will need to bring your own laptop equipped with a web browser as well as install any software specific to that lesson. Refer to each lesson’s description for specific instruction. *****
Tentative Agenda for Monday, June 22, 2026
Please note that this agenda is subject to updates.
| Event | Start | End | Speaker |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sign-in and Breakfast | 08:15 AM | – | – |
| Introduction to Office of Research Cyberinfrastructure | 08:30 AM | 08:40 AM | TBD |
| Git Version Control for Beginners | 08:45 AM | 10:25 AM | Mark Durbin |
| Coffee Break | 10:25 AM | 10:30 AM | – |
| A Gentle Introduction to Python for Research Computing | 10:30 AM | 12:15 PM | Benjamin Keene |
| Lunch Break | 12:15 PM | 01:00 PM | – |
| Introduction to Programming in R | 01:00 PM | 02:40 PM | Satyar Foroughi |
| Coffee Break | 02:40 PM | 02:50 PM | – |
| Data Visualization using Python | 02:50 PM | 04:20 PM | TBD |