Researchers
An initiative to deliver advanced, responsible AI technologies for a sustainable grain industry.
Key Personnel
Hub Director
Jie Lu AO is an internationally recognised researcher in AI and a highly experienced research manager. Her work in computational intelligence has contributed fundamentally to the way we think about fuzzy transfer learning, concept drift, data-driven support systems, and recommender systems.
She is a Distinguished Professor and the director of the Australian Artificial Intelligence Institute (AAII) at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS), the largest AI centre in Australia, with 45 researchers and more than 200 PhD students. She is also Associate Dean (Research Excellence) at the Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology at UTS, where she drives the faculty’s culture of research excellence and impact.
Through industry collaboration, Professor Lu has applied her expertise across numerous fields, including transportation, telecommunication, health care, and education. Her partners in these endeavours have included Optus, Sydney Trains, Domain Holdings, Australia Ltd, Workforce Health Assessors, and 23Strands.
Fellowships and publications (Professional accomplishments)
Professor Lu is an IEEE Fellow, an IFSA Fellow, Fellow of Australian Computer Scociety, awarded both Australian Laureate and Industry Laureate Fellowship. She has published six research books and more than 450 papers in leading journals and conferences. She has won 10 ARC Discovery projects, one ARC Linkage project, an ARC Laureate fellow project, an ARC Industry fellow project, and led 22 industry projects. She has supervised 51 PhD candidates to completion.
Prof Chengdao Li, Deputy Director (Transformation), Node Leader, ATSE Fellow
Professor Chengdao Li (Murdoch University, WA) is Director of the Western Crop Genetics Alliance and is managing pre-breeding research for multiple crops in a joint large research centre between the DPIRD WA and Murdoch University (MU). As a national leader, he has secured>$50M in funding supporting >37 projects that see collaboration with five Australian universities, three state government agencies, the CSIRO, and four private companies. He is one of the leaders in the International Barley Pangenome Consortium, which is decoding grain reference genomes and developing a pan-genome. Hence, he has helped to establish the foundations of current genomic-based breeding with over 20 universities across 10 countries. He supervises 8 postdoctoral fellows and 10 HDR students, and 3 of his students have won national awards. Li’s team has developed new breeding technologies and released benchmark barley varieties, boosting growers’ income and transforming Australia from a low-price commodity provider to a premium international barley supplier. His team will help develop new green varieties with higher CF rates that are resilient to climate change but have lower CE through a mix of AI and genomics technologies.
Prof Kishan Dholakia, Deputy Director (Research Excellence), Node Leader, ARC Laureate Fellow
Professor Kishan Dholakia (UoA, SA) is Director of the Centre of Light for Life (20 researchers, launched Feb 2023) at the University of Adelaide (UoA); Professor at the University of St Andrews (UK); and a Fellow of Optica, SPIE, the Institute of Physics (UK), and the Royal Society of Edinburgh. Dholakia has contributed biophotonics to interdisciplinary science and led Uk grants of $20M as well as EU FP7/Horizon Europe projects with researchers in ten countries (2004-2019). He has established world-renowned activities in interdisciplinary science, including the Centre of Biophotonics at St Andrews (140 researchers) and the new Centre of Light for Life at Adelaide (launched 02/23, 40 members). Dholakia’s expertise in optical analyses using Raman and fluorescence imaging based on structured light will underpin aligned Hub research.
Prof Farookh Hussain, Deputy Director (Industry Engagement), Node Leader
Professor Farookh Hussain (UTS, NSW) is an exceptional researcher in AI/IOT for agriculture and the former Head of Discipline at the School of Computer Science at UTS. Hussain specialises in forging connections between academic research and business in applied AI, cloud computing, logistics, and blockchain. He has secured >$10M in funding for 40 industry projects, predominantly as lead CI. For example, he worked with industry partner 7R Logistics to optimise their dairy logistics, co-developing carbon-neutral (CN) technology as part of the research. He also worked with PBFH to develop CF and abetment facilities, which are widely used in agriculture to reliably predict soil carbon levels using AI. Both these projects had a huge impact on his industry partners. Additionally, Hussain has delivered seminars on how to engage with industry to drive high-impact applications. His leadership and expertise will foster industry collaborations, generate industry-centric solutions, and turn research outcomes into commercial ventures as part of the hub.
Prof Daniel Murphy, Deputy Director (Training), ARC Future Fellow
Professor Daniel Murphy (Murdoch University, WA) is Director of the Centre for Sustainable Farming Systems and Professor of Agricultural Microbiology at MU. Murphy led the initial GRDC National Soil Quality Monitoring Program (24 organisations, 143 individuals plus growers, 48,835 indicator measurements. He was also the WA lead for the National SCaRP soil monitoring program. Both data sets including follow up sampling are available to this ARC bid. Murphy also leads the Bioplastic Innovation Hub in partnership with CSIRO and Industry. This hub underpins CSIRO’s Mission for Ending Plastics Waste in Australia and SE Asia by introducing to the market novel agriculture-based compostable plastics that leave no lasting legacy on land or in water. He was named Australia’s leading Biochemist in 2021 and is within the top 2% of academics globally. He currently manages $12M in research income and supervises HDR students.
Chief Investigators
Professor, School of Computer Science, Research Director of the Australian Artificial Intelligence Institute (AAII), UTS
ARC Future Fellow, IEEE Task Chair for Data Science and Advanced Analytics
Research Interests: Artificial Intelligence, Information Systems, Machine Learning
Professor, Information Technology, Murdoch University
The inaugural lead of the Agricultural Technologies program of the Western Australian Agricultural Research Collaboration, and leading expert in AI-driven agriculture
Research Interests: Computer vision and multimedia computation Artificial intelligence Digital Agriculture AI in Health and Medicine AI in Environmental Monitoring
Senior Lecturer of the Australia Artificial Intelligence Institute in the Faculty of Engineering and IT, UTS
IEEE/ACM Senior Member, ISBA/BNP Life Member, ARC Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA) Fellow
Research Interests: Probabilistic Machine Learning, Bayesian Nonparametric Learning, Bayesian Deep Learning, Text Mining, Reinforcement Learning, etc
ARC Grant-Funded Research Fellow in the Centre of Light for Life, School of Biological Sciences, College of Sciences, the University of Adelaide
Outstanding ECR on high-throughput hyperspectral microscopy, Raman spectroscopy, fluorescence spectroscopy, metrology, and sensing
Research Interests: Raman spectroscopy, Sensor Development, Optial Fibers, Application of wavefront shaping to biological problems
Senior Lecturer, School of Medical, Molecular and Forensic Sciences, Murdoch University
outstanding ECR in agricultural biostatistics and bioinformatics, with rich experience in AI applications for agriculture
Research Interests: Bioinformatics, Biostatistics, Data Science, Genomics, Proteomics, High Throughput Sequencing
Dr Negin Shariati Moghadam
Associate Professor in the School of Electrical and Data Engineering, Director of Women in Engineering at IT (WiEIT), Director and lead research and development in Communication Technologies, RF and Communication Technologies (RFCT) laboratory, Faculty of Engineering and IT, UTS
Senior Member of IEEE
Research Interests: Wireless Sensor Networks, Sustainable Energy, Radio Frequency, Renewable Energy Technologies
Associate Professor in Information Technology, Murdoch University
Chapter chair in the IEEE Western Australia section since 2021, received the Google Inclusion Research Award, and Google Academic Research Award
Research Interests: Artificial Intelligence Machine Learning Explainable AI Responsible AI Transfer Learning Multiview and Multimodal Learning Co-design and Participatory AI Health Informatics
Meet the Team
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Monet Goode
FOUNDER
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Emmett Marsh
DESIGN DIRECTOR
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Eleanor Parks
SUSTAINABILITY DIRECTOR
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Karl Holland
SALES MANAGER
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Jaya Dixon
MARKETING DIRECTOR
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Jamie Kokot
CUSTOMER SERVICE MANAGER