Overview
We offer private R programming workshops and one-on-one coaching designed from the ground up around each client's own data, workflows, and research questions. Unlike off-the-shelf courses built around generic datasets, every engagement we deliver uses real materials from the client's work — meaning participants build skills they can apply the next day, not skills they have to transfer from an unrelated example. Our training emphasizes reproducible methods, coding for transparency and collaboration, and the habits of thought that let scientists continue learning independently after the course ends. Ashton is a certified RStudio Tidyverse and Shiny instructor with 30 years of research and teaching experience, and has delivered training to government agencies, university research teams, and private organizations across North America and internationally.
Selected Projects
Introduction to R for Fisheries & Oceans Canada Scientists
Fisheries and Oceans Canada — Yukon Office
A 5-day in-person R workshop delivered in Whitehorse, Yukon for DFO scientists with minimal or no prior R experience. The first two days built foundational understanding of the R language and RStudio environment — data structures, functions, vectorized operations, and the mindset of coding versus point-and-click workflows. The final three days worked directly with DFO's own data formats (csv, xlsx, shp, xml) and typical data products, teaching import, tidying, restructuring, summarization, and visualization using participants' actual research data. The course was customized in advance using data examples provided by the host to ensure immediate relevance to participants' day-to-day work.
Data Science with R: Yukon Fish & Wildlife Branch
Yukon Government — Fish & Wildlife Branch
A 3-day private online R workshop for Yukon Fish and Wildlife Branch scientists, hosted in Zoom and Slack. The course covered foundational R skills — data import, exploration, cleaning, transformation, visualization, and function writing — using a mix of existing course materials and data examples relevant to the branch's fieldwork (landcover shapefiles, telemetry data, Excel spreadsheets). The Slack channel remained available as a reference resource for participants for four months following course completion, supporting continued independent learning.
Advanced R Programming — The Nature Conservancy LANDFIRE
The Nature Conservancy — LANDFIRE Program
A targeted 8-hour private training for the TNC LANDFIRE team focused on advancing R programming skills for an existing code project. Topics included authoring and documenting custom functions, flow control and switch statements, vectorized operations using apply and purrr, and parameterized R Markdown reports. Each topic was taught through a simple example followed by hands-on application to the team's actual LANDFIRE code — building vocabulary and pattern recognition for more confident independent coding and debugging.
R Programming & Data Analysis Retainer Consultation
Yukon Government — Water Resources Branch, Department of Environment
A 5-month retainer providing on-demand R programming and data analysis consultation to the Water Resources Branch of Environment Yukon. The arrangement guaranteed availability for up to 5 hours per month at short notice, allowing the branch to access expert R support as analytical needs arose across their water quality and monitoring projects — a model well suited to agency teams with variable analytical demands and no need for a full-time analyst on staff.