This website is basically so I can teach myself how to use R Markdown and GitHub to make a website. You're looking at the ongoing results of that process. It's also a place to put stuff that doesn't fit nicely on any official sites or social media.

Ratey is a nickname given to the website author some years ago by rowdy third-year students in Environmental Science at The University of Western Australia (UWA). So Ratey-AtUWA it is. CyboRg is what I called an R coding club I ran a couple of years ago, being an acronym for Code your butt off R group.

Ratey is a neurodiverse academic with multiple interests and responsibilities at UWA. Initially trained as a pure chemist, he married the love of his life at the end of his MSc and next completed a lab-based PhD in soil science with a soil chemistry focus, then worked as a postdoc on projects based on soil physics and nutrient cycling. He and his wife moved to Perth, Western Australia in the mid 1990s and have been there ever since, now with their two daughters.

Those multiple interests and responsibilities at work (mentioned above) include:

• assessing water, sediment and soil environments, especially in terms of chemical composition and teaching the skills needed to Bachelor's and Master's students
• continuing his passion for computer programming and data analysis by learning about coding in R, including teaching these skills to undergraduates and postgraduates, and using multivariate and spatial methods in his own research
• teaching the fundamentals of soil physics and soil chemistry to undergraduate students in Environmental Science and Agricultural Science
• trying to figure out what happens to rare-earth elements in sediments and soils, especially where these elements go and where they end up in acid sulfate environments
• urban environments in general, especially related to pollution of water, sediment, and soil
• measuring microplastics in sediments and water, and dreaming up new ways to sample and measure them
• trying to publish interesting and relevant articles based on the topics in this list
• trying to do as much research as possible while having an irrational aversion to applying for research funding

As much as this website might seem to be about work and academia, Ratey will from time to time include things related to his varied interests and hobbies; in no particular order and with many missing:

• music (mainly metal genres) and guitar playing ♫
• family and fatherhood ❤
• photography and drawing 📷 ✏
• coffee, beer, and wine ☕
• gardening with roses, fruit trees, and Australian native plants ⇨ ⇨ ⇨
• an increasingly universalist and panentheistic christian faith ✟
• enjoying the natural world ❀