Speakers & Bios

Dr Cathy Foley is an Australian physicist with a distinguished career in developing the science and technology of devices, sensors, systems development and materials science. Her most successful project led to the commercialisation of LANDTEM™ that assisted in uncovering billions of dollars of mineral resources. She joined the CSIRO Board after 40 years of service to CSIRO that included roles as Chief of Materials Science and Engineering, Science Director, Deputy Director of Manufacturing, CSIRO Chief Scientist and Australia’s Chief Scientist. Dr Foley was instrumental in establishing Australia’s quantum industry and led the development of the National Quantum Industry Strategy for the government.

Dr Foley is a strong proponent of open access, diversity and inclusion in STEM and trust in science. She is currently Editor-in-Chief of Superconductor Science and Technology; chairs the Government’s Methane Measurement Panel; is a Trustee of the Australian Museum, and a “Mind in Residence” at Questacon. 

Simon Lucey, Ph.D., is the Director of the Australian Institute for Machine Learning (AIML) at the University of Adelaide, the nation’s largest machine learning research group. Previously, he held key positions at Carnegie Mellon University’s Robotics Institute, autonomous vehicle company Argo AI, and CSIRO. He is a scientific advisor on the Temporary AI Expert Committee for the Department of Industry, Science and Resources.  

Professor Lucey has received numerous career awards, including the 2024 AmCham Alliance Award for artificial intelligence and an Australian Research Council, Future Making Fellowship. With 11 patents in computer vision, over 300 publications, more than 20820 citations, and an h-index of 62, his contributions to the field are widely recognised.  

His research focuses on computer vision, machine learning, and robotics, drawing inspiration from pioneering AI researchers to uncover computational and mathematical models underlying visual perception. 

Professor Jon Whittle is the Director of CSIRO’s Data61, the digital and data science arm of Australia’s national science agency. Passionate about the role of digital technologies in society, he was previously Dean of the Faculty of Information Technology at Monash University. Prior to that he worked as a Technical Lead at NASA, developing software for space missions.

Dr Andrew Dunbar is the Executive Director, Research, and Innovation Group, at the South Australian Department of State Development, where he’s responsible for developing and supporting the state’s innovation system in partnership with other parts of government, research organisations, industry, and business. Dr Dunbar is also a member of the RAIR Central Leadership Team. 

Professor Angie Abdilla is a palawa woman and the founder and director of Old Ways, New. In her various roles as a strategic designer, creative practitioner, and consultant, Angie advocates for Indigenous peoples and knowledge systems foundational to technology automation through design and cultural practice. Her published research interrogates Indigenous deep time technologies and AI, which continue to be informed by the Indigenous Protocols and AI working group [IP//AI], which she co-founded.

Dr. Petra Kuhnert is the Associate Science Director for University Engagement and a Senior Research Scientist in Data61 and works on a wide range of applied problems requiring a StatML solution. She has a PhD in statistics, focussing more recently on the development of methods at the intersection between statistics and machine learning to develop more informative predictions for risk-based decision-making. Petra is a recipient of the APAC Women in AI Awards for the Environment and Biodiversity category and the first runner up for Innovator of the Year for her work in the Great Barrier Reef.  She is now focussing on developing AI tools in agriculture to help farming stakeholders make better decisions in the face of uncertainty. 

AIML is the nation’s largest machine learning research group. Previously, he held key positions at Carnegie Mellon University’s Robotics Institute, autonomous vehicle company Argo AI, and CSIRO. He is a scientific advisor on the Temporary AI Expert Committee for the Department of Industry, Science and Resources.  

Professor Lucey has received numerous career awards, including the 2024 AmCham Alliance Award for artificial intelligence and an Australian Research Council, Future Making Fellowship. With 11 patents in computer vision, over 300 publications, more than 20820 citations, and an h-index of 62, his contributions to the field are widely recognised.  

His research focuses on computer vision, machine learning, and robotics, drawing inspiration from pioneering AI researchers to uncover computational and mathematical models underlying visual perception.  

Aaron Quigley is the Science Director and Deputy Director of CSIRO’s Data61. From 2020 – 2023 he was head of school for the School of Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) in the University of New South Wales in Sydney Australia and until June 2020, Professor Quigley was the Chair of Human Computer Interaction in the School of Computer Science at the University of St Andrews, director of the Scottish Informatics and Computer Science Alliance (SICSA), and a board member for ScotlandIS and the DataLab. 

Aaron’s research interests include discreet computing, global human-computer interaction (HCI), as well as pervasive and ubiquitous computing and information visualisation on which he has delivered over 50 invited talks most recently as an ACM Distinguished Speaker. Aaron has published over 190 internationally peer-reviewed publications including edited volumes, journal papers, book chapters, and conference and workshop papers. 

Aaron is an ACM Distinguished Member and an IEEE Senior Member. Aaron was the technical program Chair for the ACM EICS 2022 conference and general co-chair for the ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems in 2021. He serves as chair elect on the ACM CHI Steering committee and on the Yirigaa Advisory Board. In total Aaron has had chairing roles in thirty international conferences and has served on over ninety conference and workshop program committees. 

His research and development has been supported by the EPSRC, AHRC, JISC, SFC, NDRC, EU FP7/FP6, SFI, Smart Internet CRC, NICTA, Wacom, IBM, Intel, Nvidia, Google, Microsoft, and MERL and has held 7 patents. Aaron has held academic and industry appointments in Singapore, Australia, Japan, USA, Germany, Ireland, and the UK. 

Sarah Hartman, Ph.D. is a postdoctoral fellow at CSIRO’s Data61. Her work focuses on responsible AI co-creation with agricultural stakeholders, integrating deep learning of biophysical models with stakeholder engagement. She earned her PhD in Environmental Science and Policy from the University of California, Berkeley, where she  used machine learning of satellite imagery, biophysical modelling, and virtual water trade analysis to examine the sustainability of agricultural systems embedded in global supply chains. Sarah also holds a Bachelor’s in Environmental Engineering and has experience managing community-led water projects. She has received three U.S. National Science Foundation research fellowships and a Truman Scholarship for her commitment to public service. She also received a Mirzayan Science and Technology Policy fellowship, where she supported a climate and economic justice project at the White House, and a Fulbright Scholarship to conduct research on water resource sustainability in the Philippines. Her interdisciplinary approach bridges AI, environmental engineering, and policy to support science that serves society.

Dr. Muneera Bano is a Senior Research Scientist at CSIRO’s Data61. A passionate advocate for gender equity in STEM, she was honoured as the ‘Most Influential Asian-Australian Under 40’ in 2019 and a ‘Superstar of STEM’ by Science Technology Australia. She was the finalist for ‘Google Australia’s prestigious Anita Borg Award for Women in Computer Science’, Asia-Pacific 2015 and ‘AI for Social Good’ at ‘Women in AI’ APAC 2024 Awards.  

With a PhD in Software Engineering from the University of Technology Sydney, Muneera’s research focuses on the intersection of computers and humans, particularly in engineering technology to serve people’s needs. She was awarded the ‘Distinguished Research Paper Award’ at the International Requirements Engineering Conference in 2018. She is currently involved in projects related to responsible AI at Data61, promoting diversity and inclusion within the AI field. 

Dr Sarah Bentley is a Research Scientist who specialises in improving human outcomes, particularly in the context of people and technology. Sarah works from a social identity perspective – a theoretically grounded framework with which to understand human psychology in terms of the socio-contextual landscapes in which it is situated. Sarah previously conducted research at The University of Queensland where she designed and delivered digital solutions to tackle issues related to social isolation, whether in the workplace, in the classroom, or within broader community settings. Sarah now works at CSIRO’s Data61 (the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, Australia), where she specialises in the conceptualization and articulation of innovation in ways that focus on the intersection of technologies with the humans, groups and societies that have the most to gain or lose from them. Sarah was recently awarded the WAI (Women in Artificial Intelligence) Education award, 2024. 

Erdun Gao, Ph.D. is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Australian Institute for Machine Learning, working within the Kernels and Information Processing Systems Group. He earned his Ph.D. in Applied Statistics from the University of Melbourne, where his research focused on statistical learning methods for robust and interpretable inference. His long-term research interests centre on enabling reliable and efficient decision-making, motivated by concerns about systems that exhibit high confidence despite being wrong. His recent work lies at the intersection of causality and machine learning, with a focus on causal discovery, treatment effect estimation, and the development of causal machine learning methods.

Kavindie (Kavi) Katuwandeniya, Ph.D. is a CSIRO Early Career Researcher (CERC) postdoctoral fellow at CSIRO’s Data61. She holds an adjunct position with Monash University, Australia. Her research focuses on enhancing human-robot communication through probabilistic modelling and multimodal generative models. She earned her PhD at University of Sydney (UTS), Australia, where she developed a framework for assistive navigation, enabling more intuitive and effective interaction between humans and autonomous systems. With a background in robotics, computer vision and telecommunication, she is working towards building a world where robots are ubiquitous tools, enabling seamless collaboration between humans and intelligent machines in everyday life — from home assistance to planetary exploration. To know more about Kavi’s work, please visit: link. 

Dr Qinghua Lu is a principal research scientist at CSIRO’s Data61. She is the team leader of the Software Engineering for AI Research Team and Responsible AI Science Team. She was the winner of the 2023 Asia-Pacific Women in AI Trailblazer Award. Dr. Lu contributes to several key AI initiatives, including Australia’s AI Safety Standard, Frontier Model Forum, OECD.AI’s trustworthy AI metrics, International Working Group on AI Metrology, and EU General-Purpose AI Code of Practice.Dr. Lu has published over 150 papers in premier international journals/conferences. She is an associate editor for IEEE Transactions on AI and Engineering Applications of AI. She serves as Area Chair of Software Engineering for AI at ICSE’26, and the Program Chair for AIware’25 and CAIN’25. She is also the program committee member or reviewers of top-tier AI and software engineering conferences, including IJCAI, AAAI, NeurIPS, ICML, ICSE, FSE, ICSA, etc. Her recent paper titled “Towards a Roadmap on Software Engineering for Responsible AI” won the ACM Distinguished Paper Award. Dr. Lu’s book, “Responsible AI: Best Practices for Creating Trustworthy AI Systems”, published by Pearson Addison-Wesley in December 2023, is the world’s first responsible AI book for practitioners and became Amazon’s No. 3 AI book bestseller. Her new book, “Engineering AI Systems: Architecture and DevOps Essentials” was published by Pearson Addison-Wesley in March 2025. 

Dr Melissa McCradden is deputy director at AIML, alongside her roles as AI Director for the Women’s and Children’s Health Network and as a clinical research fellow in ethics of AI at AIML, supported by The Hospital Research Foundation (THRF). She is also an adjunct scientist at the SickKids Research Institute in Canada.

Dr McCradden, specialises in ethical frameworks for AI in healthcare, with a focus on algorithmic bias, clinical evaluation, and integration. She holds a PhD in neuroscience and a master’s in bioethics.

Madhawa Perera, Ph.D. is a Research Engineer at CSIRO’s Data61, working within the Imaging and Computer Vision Group. He earned his Ph.D. in Computer Science from the Australian National University, where his research examined how spatial computing (AR/VR) can be used to design and conduct unsupervised empirical studies that explore human interaction with intelligent systems. His current work centres on designing and developing interactive computer vision applications that support intuitive and effective human–AI interactions. Madhawa’s research interests span across applied research at the intersection of spatial computing, explainable AI, and interactive imaging. Before undertaking his Ph.D., Madhawa was a Senior Engineer at WSO2, a globally recognised middleware company. He brings an interdisciplinary mindset to both research and engineering, combining technical rigour with a human-centred design approach. 

Dr. Rifat Ara Shams is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Monash University. She is also an alumnus of Australia’s National Science Agency (CSIRO’s Data61). Her research areas are Diversity and Inclusion in Artificial Intelligence, Requirements Engineering for Responsible AI, and Human factors in software engineering and AI. She completed her PhD from Monash University, Australia, on “Human Values in Software Engineering”. To know more about Rifat and her work, explore her homepage: https://sites.google.com/view/rifatarashams. 

Dr. Jinan Zou is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow and AI Education and Outreach Liaison at the Responsible AI Research Centre (RAIR) at the Australian Institute for Machine Learning (AIML), the University of Adelaide. His research focuses on Natural Language Processing (NLP), Large Language Models (LLMs), and Causal AI, with applications in education and finance. He specializes in developing and applying LLMs in education, exploring innovative ways to enhance learning experiences through AI.

Dr. Zou fosters collaboration and promotes GenAI literacy and ethics in schools. Actively engaged in outreach efforts, he inspires the next generation of innovators and designs AI Literacy that provide hands-on learning opportunities for students, bridging AI technology and educational practices.

Kate Klimeš is the Program Manager for the Responsible AI Research (RAIR) Centre. She is Secretariate for the Central Led Team, the Research Steering Committee, and is the point of contact for the Centre. Kate is a member of the team organising the Next Generation Responsible AI Symposium that will see over 200 researchers, senior government, and industry partners converge in Adelaide, South Australia to focus on all things RAIR

Lina Court is a Project and Administrative Officer for the Responsible AI Research (RAIR) Centre. The Centre is a collaboration between CSIRO, SA State Government and the University of Adelaide.  Lina is a member of the team organising the Next Generation Responsible AI Symposium. She brings over 30 years of experience in administration and project management across state government, private industry, and the university sector. Lina has a strong background in event coordination, having successfully managed international, national, and local conferences and events throughout her career.