Jan 22, 2026: CSHS Workshop: Designing and Sharing R functions

Date: Thursday, Jan 22, 2026 – 2:30-4 pm ET

Topic: Designing and Sharing R functions

Course description:

If you use R for engineering, environmental, or hydrologic analysis, you often face two critical challenges:

You’re starting from scratch every time a new project begins. Your scripts are disposable, meaning valuable time is wasted on duplicated effort. You want to be able to pass the baton to others—or your future self—so they can easily replicate or expand on your analysis.

You’re already writing functions, but need to make them reliable, adaptable, and professionally documented. You want code that doesn’t break when exposed to different data, and documentation that clearly explains every use case.

This seminar addresses both challenges by teaching you how to design robust and professional R functions and document them using Roxygen. You’ll leave with practical skills to ensure your analytical code is instantly portable, robust, and shareable.

Speaker’s Bio:

Vincenzo Coia works at the intersection of statistics and earth science, solving complex problems in probabilistic modelling grounded in physical principles and developing tools that make those solutions accessible. His work focuses on multivariate extremes, flood frequency analysis, and risk-informed decision-making. A long-time contributor to the R community, he designs and shares R packages that help engineers and scientists apply advanced statistical methods with confidence. Vincenzo holds a PhD in Statistics from the University of British Columbia and is a P.Stat. accredited statistician with the Statistical Society of Canada. He is currently a researcher at the Politecnico di Milano and collaborates with BGC Engineering on applied geoscience projects.