Alfred Deakin professor honoured as new Australian Laureate

The leader behind Deakin's PRaDA, the haute couture of intelligent systems, has been awarded an Australian Laureate Fellowship.

The Centre for Pattern Recognition and Data Analytics (PRaDA) Director, Alfred Deakin Professor Svetha Venkatesh, received the honour in today’s new round of Australian Research Council (ARC) Awards, announced by the Minister for Education and Training Senator the Hon. Simon Birmingham.

Professor Venkatesh’s work has led to detection of potential data security threats, development of a program helping predict suicide risk, and a therapy app for children with autism.

She is the third Deakin researcher to be awarded a Laureate Fellowship, joining Professor Maria Forsyth from the Institute for Frontier Materials, and Deakin’s Deputy Vice-Chancellor Research Professor Peter Hodgson, who is a former Laureate Fellow.

Also in today’s ARC announcement, Deakin has been awarded a new Industrial Transformation Research Hub and two new Future Fellows.   All four new awards represent around $7.7 million approximately in new ARC investment.

The new ARC Research Hub for Digital Enhanced Living will be led by Professor John Grundy, an expert in software engineering within the School of Information Technology.

The Future Fellowships were awarded to Professor Tim Winter, Research Chair of Cultural Heritage in the Alfred Deakin Institute, and Associate Professor Ly Tran, from the Research for Educational Impact Strategic Research Centre (REDI), within the School of Education.

Deakin Vice-Chancellor Professor Jane den Hollander congratulated the Deakin researchers on their awards and said she was delighted at the recognition of the impact of their work and future potential to make a difference to the national and international communities served by these brilliant academic staff.

“These awards are a much-deserved acknowledgement of the importance of the work of all researchers involved and will ensure the development of outcomes that promise to make a difference to our communities in our world in the years to come,” Professor den Hollander said.

“The ARC’s recognition of the efforts and calibre of these researchers and their work demonstrates the quality of the research taking place at Deakin.

“We are particularly delighted for and proud of Professor Venkatesh, who has long played a leadership role in demonstrating to other Australian women just what is possible to achieve in the field of computing and pattern recognition globally.”

The Australian Laureate Fellowships recognise outstanding researchers of international repute who play a significant, sustained leadership and mentoring role in building Australia's research capacity.

As a Professor of Computer Science, Professor Venkatesh is one of Australia’s leading experts in pattern analysis. She has been involved in developing new technology that recognises patterns in big data and her work has led to two start-ups, of which the award-winning iCetana uses video analytics to detect potential security threats in large data sets and is now used around the world.

Other achievements include a health analytics program that is helping doctors predict suicide risk

The outcomes of the health data analytics work has been spun out to create iHosp, a start-up that will improve hospital efficiency and patient care.

Prof Venkatesh played a key role in PRaDA’s development of the TOBY Playpad app, which is providing therapy for children with autism around the world.

The Fellowship will provide over $3 million in funding to support a project that aims to determine how pattern recognition can be harnessed to accelerate and expand the capability of experimental optimisation that underpins scientific innovation.

Led by Professor John Grundy, the ARC Research Hub for Digital Enhanced Living has been awarded almost $3 million in Federal Government funds to help address the growing challenges of aging people living in their own home or residential care. It will focus on the invention of new personalised medical technologies through an innovative approach, with a multi-disciplinary team leveraging diverse expertise. In addition to the ARC funds, the Hub will benefit from just over $2 million from its partner organisations, along with considerable in-kind contributions.

Professor Tim Winter’s project addresses China’s One Belt One Road (OBOR) initiative, utilising the concept of heritage diplomacy to understand how history and culture are being used to advance 21st Century Silk Roads trade and diplomatic ties across Eurasia and the Indian Ocean Region. This project, which has been awarded more than $1 million, expects to develop new knowledge about 21st Century diplomacy and the political economies of cultural heritage today.

Expected outcomes include collaborations with OBOR think tanks and universities in Australia, China, Europe and Central Asia, and an open-access mapping database, based on international heritage documentation standards. It will support Australian and heritage international agencies to understand the large-scale forces that shape the future of heritage conservation in the region.

Associate Professor Ly Tran’s project has been granted more than $800,000 for a national investigation of Australian STEM students’ learning in and engagement with Asia through the New Colombo Plan, and its effects on their identity formation, career directions and future aspirations. Currently, almost one in five Australian students undertakes learning abroad during their undergraduate study.

The project will provide essential empirical knowledge and theoretical insights linked with Australia’s needs to develop policies and practices to optimise Australian students’ learning in Asia. The intended outcome of the project is to enhance Australia’s human capital and relationships with Asia.