Yihui Xie Explained

Yihui Xie
Birth Name:	谢益辉
Birth Place:	China
Known For:	Knitr Bookdown
Alma Mater:	Renmin University of China (BS) Iowa State University (PhD)
Thesis Title:	Dynamic Graphics and Reporting for Statistics
Thesis Url:	https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/etd/13518/
Thesis Year:	2013
Doctoral Advisor:	Dianne Cook Heike Hofmann
Workplaces:	RStudio
Fields:	Statistics Statistical graphics Statistical computing Reproducible research

Yihui Xie (Chinese: 谢益辉) is a Chinese statistician, data scientist and software engineer who formerly worked for Posit PBC.^[1] He is the principal author of the open-source software package Knitr for data analysis in the R programming language, and has also written the book Dynamic Documents with R and knitr.

Early life and education

Yihui Xie graduated from Renmin University of China with a bachelor's degree in Economics and master's degree in Statistics. He earned his Ph.D from Iowa State University supervised by Di Cook and Heike Hofmann.^[2]

Career and research

Yihui Xie created the animation package in R which allows animation in graphics through R. He then authored the knitr package which makes reproducible research available from R. Between 2013 and 2023, he has been working with RStudio, the makers of an Integrated development environment (IDE) for the R programming language.

Awards and honors

Xie was awarded the John M. Chambers statistical software award by American Statistical Association (ASA) in 2009 for the R package animation.^[3]

Publications

His publications include:

• R Markdown Cookbook^[4]
• R Markdown: The Definitive Guide^[5]
• blogdown: Creating Websites with R Markdown^[6]
• bookdown: Authoring Books and Technical Documents with R Markdown^[7]
• Dynamic Documents with R and knitr^[8]
• animation: An R Package for Creating Animations and Demonstrating Statistical Methods^[9]

Notes and References

1. Web site: Yihui Xie Interview at UseR. datascience.la. 2014.
2. PhD . Yihui. Xie . Dynamic Graphics and Reporting for Statistics . Iowa State University . 2013 . iastate.edu . 880379367. . 10.31274/etd-180810-3256 . free .
3. Web site: John M. Chambers Statistical Software Award. stat-computing.org.
4. Book: R Markdown Cookbook. Xie. Yihui. Dervieux. Christophe. Riederer. Emily. Chapman & Hall/CRC The R Series. 2020. 978-0367563837. Boca Raton, Florida.
5. Book: R Markdown: The Definitive Guide. Xie. Yihui. Allaire. J.J.. Grolemund. Garrett. Chapman & Hall/CRC The R Series. 2018. 978-1138359338. Boca Raton, Florida.
6. Book: blogdown: Creating Websites with R Markdown. Xie. Yihui. Hill. Alison. Thomas. Amber. Chapman & Hall/CRC The R Series. 2017. 978-0815363729. Boca Raton, Florida.
7. Book: Xie. Yihui. bookdown: Authoring Books and Technical Documents with R Markdown. 2016. Chapman & Hall/CRC The R Series. Boca Raton, Florida. 978-1138700109.
8. Book: Xie. Yihui. Dynamic Documents with R and knitr. 2015. Chapman & Hall/CRC The R Series. Boca Raton, Florida. 978-1498716963. 2nd.
9. Xie. Yihui. animation: An R Package for Creating Animations and Demonstrating Statistical Methods. Journal of Statistical Software. 2013. 53. 1. 1–27. 10.18637/jss.v053.i01. free.