Meet the LatinR 2026 keynote speakers
The ninth edition of LatinR is getting closer, and we can now introduce our keynote speakers. They are three people with an outstanding track record in the R, data science, and open-source software communities, who will deliver the main talks during the conference. Here’s who they are and what they will talk about.
Nic Crane: Learning with AI: Code, Data, and Life
November 12 - Parque Explora, 8:30-10:00.
Nic Crane is an open-source maintainer and independent R consultant and educator. They are a member of the Apache Arrow Project Management Committee and one of the maintainers of the Arrow R package, contributing to the broader Arrow ecosystem and its adoption across data science workflows. Nic is a contributor to the ellmer R package and teaches and writes about using LLMs in R.
In this talk, Nic will share their experiences of trying to use AI to improve their life as a data analyst, R developer, and human being. At a time when generating ideas is easy but knowing which ones to pursue is harder, how do you figure out what is worth your time, what is actually going to have a positive impact, and how to make it work with you, not against you?
Emil Hvitfeldt: Building software that matters
November 12 - Parque Explora, 14:00-15:30.
Emil Hvitfeldt is a software engineer at Posit and part of the tidymodels team’s effort to improve R’s modeling capabilities. He maintains several packages within the realms of modeling, text analysis, and color palettes. Trying to make slidecrafting a well respecting verb. He co-authored the book Supervised Machine Learning for Text Analysis in R with Julia Silge, and is currently working on the book Feature Engineering A-Z.
We build software for many different reasons and purposes, each choice impacted by what comes before it. Some software is written to be used once and thrown away; some is expected to be used by millions. We need to take into account not just how the users of our software solutions are using them, but how the stakeholders are affected. What happens when we let code be whimsical, without losing sight of what matters?
Mauricio Gómez Ardila: From the Language Wars to Technological Synergy
November 13 - Parque Explora, 16:00-17:30.
Mauricio Gómez Ardila is an actuarial specialist at Seguros Sura and a lecturer at the Faculty of Engineering of the Universidad de Antioquia, Colombia. He combines applied mathematics and statistical learning to analyze and solve financial and risk management problems. His expertise focuses on the development of insurance pricing models and optimization of technical reserves, integrating actuarial methods with advanced analytics.
For years the discussion was “R or Python?”. Now the question is different: why keep choosing? This talk proposes viewing data science as what it truly is: an ecosystem, not a catalog of competing tools. No component has value in isolation: ingestion sustains storage, storage enables modeling, and modeling only matters if it reaches deployment. When one layer matures without the others, the whole system becomes unbalanced. Choosing a language is just one decision within that machinery, not its axis. From this perspective, we will explore the tools that today break down the barrier between languages. We will see how productive teams stopped translating code and built a single pipeline where each piece does what it does best: R’s statistical rigor combined with Python’s integration and automation capabilities. Code silos inevitably create people silos. Recognizing this double interdependence (technical and organizational) leads us to a definitive conclusion: the best pipeline doesn’t speak just one language, it speaks whichever ones the project needs.
You can find all the information about the keynote speakers on the speakers page of the conference website.
Registration
You can find all the details about registration fees, including the early bird and regular conference prices, in our registration post.