Physicist turned biologist in the search of aliens https://gillescolling.com/ Sat, 29 Aug 2026 00:36:42 +0000 A columnar query engine for larger-than-RAM data in R. dplyr-style verbs backed by a pull-based C11 engine, with native raster and vector support. Fri, 26 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://gillescolling.com/side-projects/vectra/ https://gillescolling.com/side-projects/vectra/ Side Project Offline taxonomic name matching against local Darwin Core backbones. Hand it a column of messy species names and get one standardized data.frame. Fri, 26 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://gillescolling.com/side-projects/taxify/ https://gillescolling.com/side-projects/taxify/ Side Project A short talk at the BioInvasions Research Exchange Club on two recurring frictions in ecological work: species names that will not match across datasets, and rasters and tables too large to hold in memory. The two R packages that take them on are taxify, resolving messy names to accepted names offline, and vectra, fitting models on data too big for memory. Thu, 25 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://gillescolling.com/presentations/rec-taxify-vectra-2026/ https://gillescolling.com/presentations/rec-taxify-vectra-2026/ Presentation Entry to the BirdCLEF+ 2026 acoustic species identification challenge (LifeCLEF Lab, CLEF 2026). An ensemble for the multi-taxon Pantanal soundscapes, paired with an offline evaluator to compare model blends without spending leaderboard submissions. Mon, 15 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://gillescolling.com/side-projects/bird-clef-2026/ https://gillescolling.com/side-projects/bird-clef-2026/ Side Project Publication in Weed Research, 66(3). Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://gillescolling.com/publications/agricultural-weed-range-shifts/ https://gillescolling.com/publications/agricultural-weed-range-shifts/ Publication Entry to the AnimalCLEF 2026 individual animal re-identification challenge (LifeCLEF Lab, CLEF 2026). Final rank: 6/230 on the private leaderboard, top solo team. Wed, 06 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://gillescolling.com/side-projects/animal-clef-2026/ https://gillescolling.com/side-projects/animal-clef-2026/ Side Project A three-week PhD course on scientific communication and visual design, producing a graphical abstract and a scientific poster for the RESOLVE project. Wed, 06 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://gillescolling.com/workshops/visualize-your-science-2026/ https://gillescolling.com/workshops/visualize-your-science-2026/ Education Seven pictures from the archive sent off to the 2026 Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards. Fri, 10 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://gillescolling.com/side-projects/cwpa-contest/ https://gillescolling.com/side-projects/cwpa-contest/ Side Project Glacier ice on black volcanic sand at Jökulsárlón, Iceland. Entry for the 'Diversity of Life' photo contest, Faculty of Life Sciences, University of Vienna. Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://gillescolling.com/side-projects/ice-contest/ https://gillescolling.com/side-projects/ice-contest/ Side Project A free, open-source book that teaches R from scratch and explains why the language works the way it does. Sun, 08 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://gillescolling.com/side-projects/thinking-in-r/ https://gillescolling.com/side-projects/thinking-in-r/ Side Project At the VDSEE Symposium 2026, I presented a poster on habitat niche breadth expansion in European alien plants and received the Best Poster award. Fri, 27 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://gillescolling.com/presentations/vdsee2026/ https://gillescolling.com/presentations/vdsee2026/ Presentation The inaugural rainbowR virtual conference brought together LGBTQIA+ users of R and their allies on February 25-26, 2026. Featuring two keynotes, six regular talks, seven lightning talks, and four workshops, the conference showcased the diversity of R users and the breadth of what can be accomplished with R. Thu, 26 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://gillescolling.com/rainbowr2026/ https://gillescolling.com/rainbowr2026/ Education Four pieces of algorithmic art, all generated in R, exhibited at the VDSEE Symposium 2026 Art & Science event. Thu, 26 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://gillescolling.com/presentations/art-science-vdsee-2026/ https://gillescolling.com/presentations/art-science-vdsee-2026/ Presentation Publication in Journal of Open Source Software, 11(118), 9539. Wed, 25 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://gillescolling.com/publications/corrselect/ https://gillescolling.com/publications/corrselect/ Publication At the MOTIVATE consortium meeting in Vienna, I presented my work on reconstructing habitat niche expansion patterns of alien plant species across Europe, using the overrepresentation framework applied to 1.9 million vegetation plots from the European Vegetation Archive. Thu, 19 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://gillescolling.com/presentations/motivate2026/ https://gillescolling.com/presentations/motivate2026/ Presentation Equal-area hexagonal grids on the Snyder ISEA icosahedron. Fast C++ core with sf/terra-compatible R wrappers. Wed, 04 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://gillescolling.com/side-projects/hexify/ https://gillescolling.com/side-projects/hexify/ Side Project A two-day ecology workshop designed for a visiting school student, introducing biodiversity sampling, species accumulation curves, and spatial algorithms through hands-on R programming exercises. Mon, 26 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://gillescolling.com/workshops/species-accumulation-workshop/ https://gillescolling.com/workshops/species-accumulation-workshop/ Education Optimal one-to-one matching for causal inference and experimental design. High-level matching with balance diagnostics and 18 LAP algorithms. Wed, 21 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://gillescolling.com/side-projects/couplr/ https://gillescolling.com/side-projects/couplr/ Side Project At the January 2026 division meeting, I presented my ongoing work on reconstructing habitat niche expansion patterns of alien plant species across Europe, using 1.9 million vegetation plots from the European Vegetation Archive. Thu, 15 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://gillescolling.com/presentations/division-talk-2026/ https://gillescolling.com/presentations/division-talk-2026/ Presentation Simplified legend and guide alignment for ggplot2. One-liner functions for common legend operations. Wed, 17 Dec 2025 00:00:00 +0000 https://gillescolling.com/side-projects/ggguides/ https://gillescolling.com/side-projects/ggguides/ Side Project