Congratulations to our Postdoctoral Research Fellow Dr Javad Pool who received the prestigious ACPHIS PhD Medal last week. It is awarded annually for the best Australian PhD thesis in the discipline of Information Systems. Find out more about Javad’s award winning thesis.
Category: Centre News
CIRES participates in Australasian Conference on Information Systems
A number of CIRES students and staff participated in the 34th Australasian Conference on Information Systems [ACIS 2023] 5-8 December 2023, Wellington New Zealand.
CIRES posdoctoral researcher, Dr Javad Pool, shared his PhD journey as part of the ACIS Doctoral Consortium program, as well as presenting his research paper at the main conference.
CIRES students, Daisy Xu presented her current research into “Transforming Data to Value: a Multi-Case Study” at the ACIS 2023 Doctoral Consortium, while Jorge Retamales, presented his research paper “Becoming data-driven: Integrating inertia and dynamic capabilities perspectives” at the main conference.
Dr Javad Pool – 2023 Award for Excellence
Congratulations to our CIRES Postdoctoral Research Fellow Dr Javad Pool who has received a 2023 Award for Excellence from the Faculty of Business, Economics and Law (BEL) at The University of Queensland.
The award was for Research – Engagement and Impact, within the Trust in AI Research Team working with Professor Nicole Gillespie, Dr Caitlin Curtis, and Dr Steven Lockey.
“I’m honoured to receive this BEL Award for Excellence 2023 alongside the Trust in AI Research Team. Professor Nicole Gillespie’s leadership in this research has been inspiring, and I’m grateful for the opportunity to collaborate with Nicole, Steve, and Caitlin on impactful projects highlighted in the media, in policy, and in industry reports.”
Congratulations Javad!
Find out more about this research
2023 Information Resilience PhD School in Melbourne!
Thank you to all our delegates and speakers who participated in the CIRES Information Resilience PhD School 2023 hosted at The University of Melbourne. Please see below for photos, videos, posters, and slides from the 2023 event.
Congratulations to our 2023 Award Winners
Three-Minute-Thesis Competition
Winner: Hrishi Patel from The University of Queensland
Can We Predict Sepsis with Machine Learning?
Runner-up: Ensiyeh Javaherian Pour from The University of Melbourne
Underground Utility Networks
People’s choice: Jessica Hintzsche from The University of Queensland
Digital Twins in Aquaculture
Poster Session
Winner: Thisarani Ediriweera from James Cook University
Decrypting Barramundi’s Disease Resistance Code: Interactions, Genetics & Genomic Selection
Runner-up: Huy Nguyen from The University of Queensland
Sepsis prediction for paediatric patients – inpatient (ICU) environment
People’s choice: Lufan Zhang from Swinburne University of Technology
Practice-based perspective towards Explainable AI (XAI) in Enterprise Information Management (EIM)
Data Literacy
Winner: Pa Pa Khin from Swinburne University of Technology
Runner-up: Masoud Kamali from The University of Melbourne
Watch the 2023 Highlights Video
2023 Presentations on YouTube
- Professor Jenny Zhang, Keynote Talk and Presentation Slides
- Distinguished Professor Julian Thomas, Keynote Talk
- Professor Gao Cong, Technical Tutorial Presentation Slides, and recordings Part 1 and Part 2
- Dr Renata Borovica-Gajic, Invited Talk and Presentation Slides
- Panel Discussion: Research and innovation careers in industry
Interactive Sessions
- Professor Guido Zuccon, ChatGPT for scientific research, Session Slides
- Associate Professor Hassan Khosravi, Data Literacy, Session Slides
2023 PhD School Photo Gallery
Research Poster Gallery
ITRP Managers Symposium
On 16-17 October, CIRES Centre Manager Kate Aldridge and Coordinator Kathleen Williamson attended the 2023 ARC National ITRP Managers Symposium held in Adelaide; meeting with ARC representatives and fellow Managers from across Australia and sharing tips, insights and experience in the operational management of our ARC Hubs and Training Centres. This important knowledge sharing and problem solving event, also included a professional training session “Speaking with Influence” presented by Gary Edwards which provided many tactics and strategies to improve communication, and get better results in any situation. Below is a photo of the UQ representatives at the Symposium.
Welcome to Data Engineer Zhuochen Wu
We’d like to welcome Zhuochen Wu to CIRES! Zhuochen joined the Centre as a Data Engineer in November 2022 and is based at Swinburne University of Technology. Her main work includes data curation, resilient data pipelines, graph databases and distributed ETL systems, with a focus on data extraction and analytics pipeline integration. Zhuochen has a degree of Master of Computing with Data Science specialisation from the Australian National University. She works closely with Chief Investigator Associate Professor Amir Aryani. She is excited by the diverse projects within the Centre and is looking forward to collaborating with other researchers to find meaningful insights from data.
Welcome to Data Engineer Shaoyang Fan
We’d like to welcome Dr Shaoyang Fan to CIRES! Shaoyang joined CIRES as a Data Engineer in July 2023 at The University of Queensland. Shaoyang is a data scientist and specialises in microtask crowdsourcing, data quality, and bias. He works closely with Chief Investigator Associate Professor Gianluca Demartini, working in data curation and human computation research, including constructing crowd-sourced data curation processes. He has a PhD in Computer Science and Master of Science in Information Technology, both from UQ, and Master of Science in Econometrics from The University of Manchester.
Shaoyang is looking forward to applying his technical skills and passion for data science to make impactful contributions to the Centre.
Dr Sen Wang CI for new ARC Training Centre in Predictive Breeding in Agriculture
Congratulations to School of EECS, Professor Helen Huang, and CIRES CI, Dr Sen Wang, for the successful $5M funding of the ARC Training Centre in Predictive Breeding for Agricultural Futures. The Centre will train the next generation of breeders and develop cutting-edge predictive breeding technologies in partnership with industry. The Centre will train 31 PhDs, seven Postdocs and perform research across 21 agriculturally important species. The Centre brings together significant contributions from five Australian universities and 30 national and international partner organisations, and now the ARC, to a total value of $136M.
Best Paper Award ICTIR 2023
Congratulations to CIRES Chief Investigator Associate Professor Gianluca Demartini and fellow authors who received the Best Paper Award for their work “Perspectives on Large Language Models for Relevance Judgment” https://lnkd.in/gmf3qU97
The work is the result of an international collaboration between researchers in Italy, USA, Canada, Australia, Germany, Netherlands, and Japan, who highlight the risks and opportunities of large language models and their impact on information retrieval research. The award was given by a committee of information retrieval experts at the ACM, Association for Computing Machinery‘s SIGIR International Conference on the Theory of Information Retrieval in Taipei last week.
CIRES is 2!
CIRES has turned 2! On 1 August 2023 we celebrated at CIRES headquarters at UQ with light lunch and cake and shared key highlights from CIRES over the past 2 years.
CIRES Highlights
The partnership between CIRES and Health and Wellbeing Queensland has broadened my perspectives and understanding in the field of data, especially the use/application of data science in health. Every CIRES event, workshop, and presentation never cease to inspire and challenge my thinking and perspectives when designing solutions to address obesity prevention. Dr Li Kheng Chai, Partner Investigator, Health and Wellbeing Queensland
The two highlights for me were the showcase events last November – the Information Resilience Symposium and the Centre Launch and tour – it was great to hear what the Centre had been doing. Geoff Clarke, CIRES Strategy Board
Interdisciplinary opportunities including the Building Social Licence workshop and hosting international visiting students. Associate Professor Gianluca Demartini, Chief Investigator and Theme Leader
Facilitating the CIRES BIS Reading group and having the opportunity to contribute to the CIRES industry partner research projects, including community attitude towards data analytics. Dr Javad Pool, Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Working amongst the CIRES team day to day has been excellent. The structure of CIRES supports PhD candidates and early-career researchers through its internal leadership management and governance frameworks. We also get access to useful external feedback and thought-partnership from industry and other universities with which CIRES has developed strong relationships. Attending the PhD school was a good opportunity to meet fellow emerging scholars in the field of Information Resilience from universities across Australia. It created a convivial atmosphere for us, future thought-leaders in this field, to acquaint with one another’s work as well as at a personal level. Krishna Dermawan, PhD Researcher
Computational Social Science Reading group
We have a number of reading groups happening across the Centre and it’s a key part of our cross-collaboration between our university partners Swinburne University of Technology and The University of Queensland.
Great conversation in the Computational Social Science Reading group led by CIRES Postdoc Dr Hui Yin, PhD researchers Pa Pa Khin and Lufan Zhang, and Dr Javad Pool, around AI-enabled knowledge sharing and learning.
Swinburne University of Technology, hosted our second Computational Social Science Reading group with the collaboration of colleagues at the University of Queensland, part of the ARC Training Centre for Information Resilience (CIRES).
Dr. Hui Yin leads the conversation today with a focus on a paper about knowledge management titled ” AI-enabled knowledge sharing and learning: redesigning roles and processes” (https://lnkd.in/g8xSTg3c). Pa Pa Khin gave a detailed introduction to this paper. This research paper provides a comprehensive framework for analyzing AI’s impact on various practices in knowledge management, and it uncovers the vital necessity of tailored AI-enabled knowledge management systems to cater to modern knowledge worker demands. We had a productive conversation about the role of AI in facilitating organizational knowledge sharing and learning, and how it can support knowledge management activities.
Managing the risk of AI
What are generative AI systems really doing with our data?
Professor Shazia Sadiq has forecast that developing and applying policy ‘guardrails’ will be critical to prevent rampant unethical misuse of AI technology.
Read why a UQ data expert worries that we are not doing enough to manage the risk of AI.
Keynote at 2023 ACM SIGMOD/PODS
CIRES Centre Director, Professor Shazia Sadiq presented a keynote “DEI Perspectives in Information Technology Education” on June 21 at the 2023 ACM SIGMOD/PODS International Conference on Management of Data, Seattle, Washington, USA.
Information Technology (IT) has become deeply intertwined with business and society across many sectors such as health, transport, manufacturing, and education is no exception. In this talk I will outline some of the challenges in education resulting from increasingly diverse student populations and shifts in delivery modes for learning. I will also share experiences and strategies for embedding DEI perspectives in education of, for and with Information Technology.
NSTC Rapid Response on Generative AI
On 6 June, Hon Ed Husic MP, Minister for Industry and Science, launched the NSTC Rapid Response on Generative AI: https://lnkd.in/gfbb5f8c. The development of the report was drawn together through the National Science and Technology Council, guided by its Executive Officer and Australia’s Chief Scientist, Dr Cathy Foley . The work was led by Professors Genevieve Bell, Jean Burgess, Shazia Sadiq and Julian Thomas, drawing on critical input from peers across academia.
Welcome to Postdoctoral Research Fellow Javad Pool
Welcome to Dr Javad Pool who joins CIRES as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at The University of Queensland.
Javad completed his PhD in Business Information Systems with the UQ Business School, focusing on data privacy, and the effective use of information systems, particularly in the digital health context.
He will work closely with Professors Shazia Sadiq, Marta Indulska, Andrew Burton-Jones, and Dr Ida Asadi Someh. His research aims to understand and address socio-technical challenges in information systems, including data governance, privacy, trust, data breaches, misinformation, the effective use of data, and data protection. Javad is looking forwarding to collaborating with a diverse range of stakeholders to advance research on information resilience and data protection practices.
Welcome Javad!
CIRES Presentation to Google
The Head of Research of Google Australia, Dr Grace Chung, visited UQ on 5 June. Prof Marta Indulska presented an overview of CIRES and research into Responsible AI, while Dr Hassan Khosravi spoke on Education and AI. Research discussion revolved around AI, particularly in the space of AI for Health, and Language, Search and Recommendation.
Welcome to New CIRES CI, Dr Rocky Chen
We are pleased to announce the appointment of Dr Rocky Tong Chen as a Chief Investigator with CIRES!
Rocky is a lecturer in Business Analytics with the Data Science group at The University of Queensland. His research interests include data mining, machine learning, recommender systems, and predictive analytics.
He joined CIRES as an Affiliate Investigator in 2021, and was the Chair of the Centre’s inaugural Information Resilience PhD School in 2022. His Centre PhD supervisions span CIRES partners Health and Wellbeing Queensland, Allianz Partners (Australia) and the Queensland Police Service.
Rocky is looking forward to developing cutting-edge data science solutions to real-world, large-scale problems. He is also committed to the research training and capacity building that will add skillful hands to new-generation industry applications.
Welcome to New CIRES CI, Associate Professor Wojtek Tomaszewski
We are pleased to announce the appointment of Associate Professor Wojtek Tomaszewski as a Chief Investigator with CIRES!
Wojtek is the Deputy Director (Research) and a Research Group Leader at the Institute for Social Science Research at The University of Queensland. He joined the Centre as an Affiliate Investigator in 2022, and brings to CIRES specialist expertise in social sciences, including quantitative research methods and statistical analysis.
He has a strong research interest in the impact of disadvantage on educational and labour market outcomes in young people. He will be an Associate Advisor for the On-demand Dataset Builder https://lnkd.in/gf33trVD PhD project which is a collaboration with the Queensland Department of Education.
As a CI with the Centre, Wojtek is looking forward to building cross-disciplinary collaborations, and working with industry partners to promote building data resources and infrastructure to support evidence-based solutions to real-world challenges.
Welcome to PhD Researcher, Eslam Zaher
We’d like to welcome Eslam Zaher to CIRES! Eslam joined the Centre as a PhD Researcher in April 2023 and is based at The University of Queensland. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Communications and Information Engineering from the Zewail City of Science and Technology. His research interests are focused on data-centric AI, interpretability, and natural language processing.
Eslam’s PhD project “Interpretable AI – Theory and Practice” is a collaboration with industry partner Max Kelsen, and is supervised by Dr Fred Roosta-Khorasani, Dr Quan Nguyen, and Dr Maciej Trzaskowski.
Welcome Eslam!
Welcome to PhD Researcher, Huy Nguyen
We’d like to welcome Van Nhat Huy Nguyen (Huy) to CIRES! Huy has joined the Centre as a PhD Researcher in April 2023 and is based at The University of Queensland. He holds a Bachelor of Computer Science (Honours) from UQ, receiving First Class Honours. His dissertation was on detecting misinformation from multiple news topics, and his research interests include natural language processing and data linkage.
Huy’s PhD project “Expanding Data Sets to Allow Improved Critical Care for Children – Inpatient Risk Prediction” is a collaboration with government partner Queensland Health, and is supervised by Dr. Sen Wang and Dr. Ruihong Qiu, and Associate Professor Kristen Gibbons and Dr. Sainath Raman (Queensland Health). His research focuses on developing inpatient risk prediction models for paediatric patients at risk of sepsis. He is inspired by the Centre’s vision to solve real-world problems, using a diverse range of expertise and technologies. He is also looking forward to collaborating with colleagues across the Centre and with Queensland Health to improve the quality of children’s healthcare.
Welcome Huy!
