About Me
NEW: I'm running a 2-hour Workshop for Ukraine to help raise money for Ukraine's defense! You can donate whether or not you want to attend.
I am recently retired and eagerly exploring my next chapter! You can follow along in this journey at My Next Chapter blog.
Previously, I was a journalist and data professional equally at home analyzing data, coding tools for journalists, and covering technology. My most recent paid job was director of editorial data & analytics at Foundry (an IDG Inc. company), which publishes tech Web sites including Computerworld, CIO, PCWorld, and Macworld. I was also author and host of InfoWorld's Do More With R series. I still occasionally freelance for Computerworld and InfoWorld.
My book, Practical R for Mass Communication and Journalism, is available from publisher CRC Press and Amazon (you can see Six chapters free online).
I've taught workshops for ProPublica, the New England First Amendment Coalition, and at Investigative Reporters and Editors conferences. And, I keynoted the 2020 European R User Meeting.
I received an ASBPE national gold award for impact/investigative online excellence (see story), a 2023 Neal Award for best instructional content, and two ASBPE national golds for best how-to articles (see 2014 and 2017 winners). I was also named the Digital Analytics Association's top practitioner in 2021.
I hold an Extra-class ham radio license and was honored by the Association of Radio Amateurs of Bosnia & Herzegovina "for extraordinary contribution to transmitting humanitarian messages of the citizens of Bosnia-Herzegovina" during the 1992-95 war.
My other hobbies include photography, travel, hiking, snowshoeing, crocheting, and classical piano. And, I'm somewhat obsessed with both generative AI and the R programming language.
You can follow me on Bluesky at https://bsky.app/profile/smachlis.bsky.social, Mastodon at @smach@masto.machlis.com and my searchable app with my Mastodon posts, and on LinkedIn.
My Recent InfoWorld and Computerworld Articles
How to create your own RAG applications in R 2025-07-17
GenAI tools for R: New tools to make R programming easier 2025-03-25
3 of the best LLM integration tools for R 2025-03-25
Analyze text using natural language with Claude for Google Sheets 2024-12-17
Create searchable Bluesky bookmarks with R 2024-12-09
FAQ: Getting started with Bluesky 2024-12-09
Shiny for Python adds chat component for generative AI chatbots 2024-07-23
Maker of RStudio launches new R and Python IDE 2024-06-24
5 easy ways to run an LLM locally 2024-03-28
How to run R in Visual Studio Code 2024-02-15
Posit lays off R Markdown, knitr creator Yihui Xie 2024-01-05
My Data-Related Mastodon Posts
New presentation just posted at today's @useR_conf virtual conference: Plot Twist: Adding Interactivity to the Elegance of ggplot2 with ggiraph
By @tanya_shapiro & @CedScherer
Video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GnDjRxyO-7A
#RStats #DataViz #ggplot2 #user2025 (2025-08-01 16:35:53.718) >>
@juliasilge I still find that too often I end up going down a sysadmin rabbit hole when I'm working with Python. I need to use uv more. (2025-07-31 16:31:22.601) >>
If RAG + #RStats isn't the topic for you but you'd still like to help raise money for medics in Ukraine, you can also
* Sponsor a student https://www.machlis.com/workshop/
* Explore other workshop topics at Workshops for Ukraine (searchable table on right doesn't use AI and doesn't require an OpenAI key) https://smach-rag-4-ukraine-workshops-demo-app.share.connect.posit.cloud 2/2 (2025-07-23 13:05:50.551) >>
Learn #RStats + #GenAI *and* help medics in Ukraine save lives!
Join my Workshop for Ukraine on Sept 11 to see how to build LLM-powered chatbots with R that query your documents
We'll use {ragnar} and {ellmer} to create a RAG chatbot that answers questions about all Workshop topics & times. Then, we'll use those skills to query data on #PositConf2025 sessions.
💙💛 Register: https://sites.google.com/view/dariia-mykhailyshyna/main/r-workshops-for-ukraine#h.nxnvhskykjzg 1/2 (2025-07-23 13:02:18.408) >>