PeopleofSuperintelligence

Builder

Hiroaki Yutani

Also known as yutannihilation

Hiroaki Yutani is an R developer who works on data visualization and on running Rust code from R. Packages carrying his name have been on CRAN since April 2015, and in 2018 he implemented geom_sf_text() and geom_sf_label() for ggplot2 3.1.0. He was one of the authors of the 2019 paper “Welcome to the Tidyverse” in the Journal of Open Source Software. He contributed to extendr, a toolkit for writing R extensions in Rust, and announced his own framework, savvy, in 2023. He is one of the nine core developers of ggplot2.

Links
GitHub

Timeline

  1. Since 2015

    Fifteen packages on CRAN

    His packages appear on CRAN from April 2015 onward. Fifteen CRAN packages list him, among them ggplot2, knitr, gghighlight, which highlights lines and points in ggplot2, and estatapi, an R interface to the e-Stat API.

  2. 2018

    Labels for ggplot2 maps

    In 2018, he implements geom_sf_text() and geom_sf_label() for ggplot2 3.1.0. The two geoms label each geometry of an sf layer without first computing label points with sf::st_centroid() or sf::st_point_on_surface().

  3. 2019

    Co-authoring the tidyverse paper

    He is one of 24 authors of “Welcome to the Tidyverse”, which Hadley Wickham leads as first author. The Journal of Open Source Software publishes the paper in November 2019.

  4. 2020

    The gghighlight 0.2.0 release

    In February 2020, he announces gghighlight 0.2.0, a new version of his ggplot2 highlighting package. The post covers three new features: keep_scales, calculate_per_facet and unhighlighted_params.

  5. 2021

    An unofficial extendr guide

    In June 2021, he publishes the blog post “Unofficial Introduction To extendr (1): Your First R Package With Rust” on integrating R and Rust with extendr. A note on the post now points readers to the official version of the introduction on the extendr site.

  6. 2023

    From extendr to savvy

    In July 2023, an R Consortium interview with extendr creator Andy Thomason credits him and Claus Wilke with quite a lot of effort on the plotting side of extendr, the toolkit for building R extensions in Rust. In September 2023, he announces savvy, his own framework modeled on extendr, after about half a year of work.

  7. 2024

    Better usize conversion in savvy

    In October 2024, he blogs about a new release of savvy, a simple R extension interface using Rust, that improves the conversion to usize. The post explains the trickiness he met while working out how large an integer-like number R can safely handle.

  8. As of October 2026

    Core developer of ggplot2

    He is one of the nine core developers of ggplot2 named in the project’s governance document, alongside Thomas Lin Pedersen, Claus Wilke and Dewey Dunnington.

  1. Google had the most people shaping AI every year from 2014 to 2025Our estimates of which organizations employed the most people shaping AI each year from 1955 to 2025, tracing the shift from university labs to companies.
  2. The United States employs an estimated 48% of people shaping AIWe estimate where the people shaping AI work today, how universities, companies and research institutes split across countries, and how country shares have changed since the 1960s.
  3. 43% of living people shaping AI work outside their country of birthWe estimate that 43% of living people shaping AI work outside their country of birth (520 of 1,198 people with known birth and employment countries).
  4. More people shaping AI studied at Massachusetts Institute of Technology than at any other institutionWe estimate where the people shaping AI studied and where their careers led. Massachusetts Institute of Technology leads with 467 former students, including 291 recorded doctorates.

Colleagues

People named in this biography, and people with dated positions at the same organization in the same years.

Sources and credits

Photo: We have no published photo of Hiroaki Yutani yet. Send us a free-licensed photo.

  1. Hiroaki Yutani | R Observatory r-observatory.thecoatlessprofessor.com. Checked 21 October 2026.
  2. geom_sf_text() and geom_sf_label() Are Coming! – Wannabe Rstats-fu yutani.rbind.io. Checked 21 October 2026.
  3. Journal of Open Source Software: Welcome to the Tidyverse joss.theoj.org. Checked 21 October 2026.
  4. gghighlight 0.2.0 – Wannabe Rstats-fu yutani.rbind.io. Checked 21 October 2026.
  5. Unofficial Introduction To extendr (1): Your First R Package With Rust – Wannabe Rstats-fu yutani.rbind.io. Checked 21 October 2026.
  6. R Consortium Funded Project Extendr Provides Rust Extensions for R | R-bloggers r-bloggers.com. Checked 21 October 2026.
  7. Introduction of Savvy, (Not Really) an Alternative to Extendr: Part 1 – Wannabe Rstats-fu yutani.rbind.io. Checked 21 October 2026.
  8. What Is The Maximum Integer(-ish) Number That R Can Safely Handle? – Wannabe Rstats-fu yutani.rbind.io. Checked 21 October 2026.
  9. Roles and responsibilities • ggplot2 ggplot2.tidyverse.org. Checked 21 October 2026.