Event

Annual Event

Information Resilience PhD School 2024

This annual event is open to Australian-based PhD candidates, or students planning to commence a PhD in Australia. Is data-driven analysis a major part of your research? The Information Resilience PhD School offers a 2.5-day program from 29 – 31 October at The University of Queensland for current or prospective PhD students interested in exploring and understanding cutting-edge data science practices, pathways towards academic or industry careers, and prospects of next-generation research in the field.

29 October, 2024 - 31 October, 2024

Room 47A-241 - Sir James Foots Building, The University of Queensland

Overview

Who should attend the PhD School in 2024?

Are you an Australian-based PhD candidate, or planning to commence a PhD in Australia? Is data-driven analysis a major part of your research? In CIRES, we are pursuing the following goals concerning how data is acquired, managed, and utilised:

Agility in value creation from data: To enable agile deployment of data driven solutions within IT landscapes and business processes;
Data curation at scale: To build new data curation methods through machine learning, crowd-sourcing and human-in-the-loop techniques to achieve data curation at scale;
Algorithmic transparency: To enable and promote interpretability, uncertainty quantification, unbiasedness, transparency and reproducibility into the design of learning algorithms;
Trusted data partnerships: To improve data literacy and trust in data linking in the wider community towards reducing barriers in data sharing and flow of knowledge;
Responsible use of data assets: To create and support capacity for responsible management of data assets through principled approaches to data governance, access and sharing.

If any of our goals rings a bell, then the Information Resilience PhD School is the right place for you! The Information Resilience PhD School offers a 2.5-day program from 29 – 31 October at The University of Queensland for current or prospective PhD students interested in exploring and understanding cutting-edge data science practices, pathways towards academic or industry careers, and prospects of next-generation research in the field. The Information Resilience PhD School brings research students from Australian universities together with leading national and international researchers to enhance and invigorate research education, offering an opportunity to share and discuss research with both peers and mentors.

What does the Information Resilience PhD School deliver?

Knowledge sharing and acquisition in data-driven research.

A series of interactive activities including keynotes, tutorials, panel discussions, workshops, and student driven 3MT and poster sessions.

Internationally renowned scholars will present techniques that enable, advance, and shape many research areas and applications today. These activities will cover the following topics (selectively listed):

Data quality practices in the Age of AI
Ultra-personalisation with big data
The dos and don’ts with generative AI in data-drive research
Industry engagement and entrepreneurship development
The mind game between authors and reviewers in the publishing journey

Special Guest Speakers

Professor Felix Naumann, Hasso Plattner Institute (HPI), Germany
Professor Lina Yao, Senior Principal Research Scientist, CSIRO’s Data61, & Conjoint Professor @ UNSW
Professor Tim Kastelle, Director, Andrew N. Liveris Academy for Innovation and Leadership, UQ
With more speakers to be announced

Mentorship from both academia and industry

The Information Resilience PhD School will feature industry leaders and world-class researchers sharing their experience in digital transformation, stories of data-driven R&D practices, and visions on next-generation information technologies. The dedicated activities include:

Special guest presentations
Panel sessions hosted by industry leaders and academics
Mentoring and advising on research and professional development
Experience sharing by early-career researchers

Social networking

The Information Resilience PhD School offers opportunities to engage with guest speakers, build connections with peers with common research interests and establish interdisciplinary collaborations with experts across domains. Our social networking events include:

Interactive poster and presentation sessions with awards
Welcome Reception
Banquet

Important Dates

16th September 2024 Applications Due
20th September 2024 Successful Applicants Notified
30th September 2024 Registration Deadline for successful applicants
29th-31st October 2024 Information Resilience PhD School 2024

What is CIRES?

Headquartered at The University of Queensland (UQ) in Brisbane, the ARC Centre for Information Resilience (CIRES) is built on strong foundations of responsible data science research, in collaboration with Swinburne University of Technology, and current partners Aginic, Astral Consulting, Allianz Worldwide Partners (AWP) Australia, Health & Wellbeing Queensland, Department of Education, Queensland Health, and the Queensland Police Service. The Centre brings together end-users, technology providers, and cutting-edge research, to lift the socio-technical barriers to data driven transformation and develop resilient data pipelines capable of delivering game-changing productivity gains that position Australian organisations at the forefront of technology leadership and value creation from data assets.

Watch the 2023 Highlights Video

Program

The 2024 Information Resilience PhD School will be held at:

Collaborative Room 47a-241 James Foots Building

Corner of College and Staff House Roads

St Lucia Campus

The University of Queensland

Getting to The University of Queensland
Transport & Parking

Final Program TBA

Speakers

Professor Felix Naumann
Hasso Plattner Institute (HPI), Germany
Keynote: Data Quality Practices in the Age of AI

Professor Felix Naumann holds the chair for Information Systems at HPI, University of Potsdam. He has been a visiting researcher at AT&T Research, IBM Research, and SAP. His research interests include data profiling, data quality and cleansing, and data integration, recorded in over 200 scientific publications. He is trustee of the VLDB Endowment.
Professor Lina Yao
CSIRO Data61 & University of New South Wales
Keynote: Towards Agentic Recommender Systems

Professor Lina Yao is a Senior Principal Research Scientist and Science Lead at CSIRO’s Data61, alongside her academic role as a Conjoint Professor at the University of New South Wales. Her research endeavours are deeply rooted in the development of generalizable, transparent, and data-efficient methodologies within the domains of data mining and deep learning. One of her specialized focuses is recommender systems, where she strives to address challenges of data scarcity, interoperability, and complexity of human behaviours. Her research delves into understanding the temporal and contextual nuances of human interactions and diverse feedback with digital platforms, enabling the development of recommendation models that perform effectively and evolve in tandem with user needs and societal trends.
Professor Tim Kastelle
Andrew N. Liveris Academy for Innovation and Leadership, The University of Queensland
Presentation: Industry engagement and entrepreneurship development

Professor Tim Kastelle’s research, teaching and engagement work are all based on his study of innovation management. He graduated from Princeton University with a degree in economics, and his MBA and PhD were completed at UQ. He has published widely in the leading innovation journals.
Professor Andrew Burton-Jones
The University of Queensland
Writing Workshop: Reviewing and Responding to Reviewers’ Comments

Professor Andrew Burton-Jones has extensive experience teaching IT governance and control, systems analysis and design, and digital health. He undertakes research in three areas. His first area focuses on how effectively organisations use IT. For example, he has been studying the effective use of electronic health records in health authorities. His second research area focused on improving methods to analyse and design IT systems. For example, he has examined ways to improve the specification of user requirements. His third research stream focuses on improving theories and methods used by researchers in the Information Systems discipline.
Associate Professor Hassan Khosravi
The University of Queensland
Interactive Session: Information Resilience Escape Room

Dr Hassan Khosravi is a CIRES Chief Investigator and Theme Leader, and Senior Lecturer in Data Science and Learning Analytics at The University of Queensland. As a computer scientist by training, he is passionate about the role of artificial intelligence in the future of education. In his research, he draws on theoretical insights from learning science and exemplary techniques from the fields of human-computer interaction, learning analytics and explainable AI to design, implement, validate and deliver technological solutions that contribute to the delivery of learner-centred, data-driven learning at scale. His past research and publications have addressed a number of diverse topics such as learning graphical models, statistical-relational learning, social network analysis, cybersecurity and game theory.
Dr Rocky Chen
The University of Queensland
Welcome and PhD School Chair
Dr Rocky Tong Chen is the Chair of the 2023 Information Resilience PhD School, and CIRES Chief Investigator. He is currently a Lecturer in Business Analytics with Data Science Group at The University of Queensland. Before that, he received his PhD degree in Computer Science from The University of Queensland in 2020. His research work has been published on top venues like SIGIR, SIGKDD, ICDE, WWW, ICDM, IJCAI, AAAI, CIKM, TOIS, TKDE, etc., where his research interests include data mining, machine learning, recommender systems, and predictive analytics.
Professor Shazia Sadiq
The University of Queensland
Opening address: Introduction to CIRES and the PhD School
Professor Shazia Sadiq is the CIRES Centre Director and a research and education leader in data science at The University of Queensland. Her research track record has focused on overcoming challenges that stem from disparate IT systems and result in information silos, and she has developed new methods that to tackle these challenges through integrated solutions for information quality and effective use. Shazia is passionate about the positive impact emerging technologies from data science, machine learning and artificial intelligence can have on our future. She advocates for the responsible and ethical technology developments and believe strongly that these developments require trans-disciplinary collaborations between research, industry, government and community.

Registration

How to Apply

To be considered for a place at the 2024 Information Resilience PhD School, please submit the

online application

DEADLINE: 16th September 2024

The Information Resilience PhD School is an in-person event and open only to Australian based students. Capacity is limited to 50 attendees only. Attendees will be selected based on the relevance of their research backgrounds and interests to School topics.

There is NO registration charge to attend the Information Resilience PhD School which will cover all event expenses including lunches and coffee breaks, and social networking activities.

The Information Resilience PhD School is a participatory training event with attendees contributing to the program through research posters and 3MT presentations.

CIRES Travel Grants

You may indicate your interest to be considered for a CIRES Travel Grant via the online application form. Up to 25 x Travel Grants are available for Australian based students, who live outside Brisbane, to subsidise travel and 3 nights accommodation costs to attend the PhD School. The grants are worth up to a maximum of $1,000 and would be reimbursed based on receipts. 

ONLINE APPLICATION

DEADLINE: 16th September 2024