  Algebraic methods have a long history in statistics. The most prominent
manifestation of modern algebra in statistics can be seen in the field of
algebraic statistics, which brings tools from commutative algebra and algebraic
geometry to bear on statistical problems. Now over two decades old, algebraic
statistics has applications in a wide range of theoretical and applied
statistical domains. Nevertheless, algebraic statistical methods are still not
mainstream, mostly due to a lack of easy off-the-shelf implementations. In this
article we debut m2r, an R package that connects R to Macaulay2 through a
persistent back-end socket connection running locally or on a cloud server.
Topics range from basic use of m2r to applications and design philosophy.
