Ross Ihaka is a prominent statistician and one of the co-creators of the programming language R. He played a significant role in developing R during the early 1990s while working at the University of Auckland in New Zealand. R has since become a widely used tool for statistical computing and data analysis, favored by researchers and data scientists around the world. Ihaka's contributions to R include its foundational design and the establishment of its core functionalities. His work has greatly influenced the field of data science, making complex statistical methods more accessible to users. Today, R is an essential resource in various domains, including academia, industry, and government.