Welcome
Welcome to “R Programming for Infectious Disease Modeling”!
This website contains all of the material for the 2025 Summer Institute in Modeling for Infectious Diseases (SISMID) Module “R Programming for Infectious Disease Modeling”.
Prerequisities
Participants are expected to have a basic understanding of R, including how to open and write R scripts, read in data, and use basic functions and syntax. Participants are also expected to have prior knowledge of basic descriptive statistics and regression modeling consistent with an introductory statistical course.
Before the course begins, you should install R and RStudio on your laptop. If you are using an older version of R, you should update it before the course begins. You will need at least R version 4.4.1 for this course, but using the most recent version (4.5.1 at the time of writing) is always preferable. You’ll also need Quarto.
- You can install R from the CRAN website by clicking on the correct download link for your OS.
- You can install RStudio from the Posit website.
- You can install the latest version of Quarto from the Quarto website, but if you have a relatively up-to-date version of RStudio, it will also come with Quarto.
About the instructors
Co-Instructor: Alex Edwards
Alex Edwards is an Instructor in the Department of Biostatistics and Bioinformatics at Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health. With a robust background in healthcare and public health research, Alex brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to his teaching. He is an alumnus of the Rollins School of Public Health, where he earned his Master of Science in Public Health (MSPH) in 2017. Currently, Alex is pursuing his PhD at the Stellenbosch University, ZA, focusing on the spatial modeling of HIV multi-morbidity disorder in sub-Saharan Africa. Alex has published extensively on the intersection of HIV and non-communicable diseases, contributing valuable insights to the field. His dedication to advancing public health is evident in his teaching and research endeavors.
Co-Instructor: Zane Billings
Zane Billings is a PhD student in Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the University of Georgia, working with Andreas Handel. He has been using R since 2017, and uses R for nearly all of his statistics and data science practice. Zane’s research focuses on the immune response to influenza vaccination, and uses machine learning and multilevel regression modeling (in R!) to improve our understanding of influenza immunology.