About Sharon Machlis

LATEST: Sharon's book, Practical R for Mass Communication and Journalism, is available from publisher CRC Press and Amazon. See six chapters online here.

Sharon is equally at home analyzing data, coding tools for journalists, and writing about technology. She is currently director of editorial data & analytics at IDG Communications, publisher of tech Web sites including Computerworld, CIO, PCWorld, and Macworld.

She has worked on data projects such as analyzing tens of thousands of tech visa applications. She has also taught both R and general data visualization at ProPublica, Investigative Reporters and Editors' Computer Assisted Reporting conferences, Boston University workshops, American Society of Business Press Editors webinars, and a national Journalism and Women Symposium.

She was previously executive editor, data & analytics at Computerworld, where she won the 2014 ASBPE national gold award for impact/investigative online excellence (see story) and the 2014 and 2017 ASBPE national golds for best how-to article (see 2014 and 2017 winners).

Sharon holds 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.

Sharon's other hobbies include photography, travel, hiking, snowshoeing, and classical piano. And, she's somewhat obsessed with the R programming language.

You can follow Sharon on Twitter @sharon000.