Thank you @gra !
I too learned web-based GIS on javascript (mostly google maps API) but fell into the world of R as I began graduate school. I find that there are many students and researchers who understand R due to their need for statistics computation but they aren't aware of how to present their findings in a spatial context.
ps - thanks for the typo correction!
Interesting...statistics can say a lot on their own, but visualizing that data spatially makes it easier to identify trends that the numbers might not show. I am excited to see how you apply this to your research!