Kerrie Mengersen

Roles & Affiliations: Distinguished Research Professor in Statistical Science at Queensland University of Technology (QUT), Director of QUT Centre for Data Science, and Associate Member of University of Oxford's Department of Statistics. Served as Deputy Director of ARC Centre of Excellence in Mathematical and Statistical Frontiers (2015–2021) and ARC Laureate Fellow (2015–2021).

Education: BA (Hons) and PhD in Mathematical Statistics from University of New England, Australia. Completed post-doctoral roles at multiple Australian universities.

Research Interests: Specializes in Bayesian statistical modelling, computational methods, and their applications in environmental science, genetics, healthcare, and industry. Leads projects on coral reef recovery, cancer epidemiology (Australian Cancer Atlas), and virtual citizen science platforms like Virtual Reef Diver. Her work emphasizes interdisciplinary collaboration, integrating complex data sources with advanced statistical techniques to address real-world challenges.

Publications & Grants: Over 350 refereed journal publications and attracted >30 major grants. Recent focus areas include influenza epidemiology, spatial health disparities, and AI-driven early warning systems for climate-sensitive diseases. Active in developing methodologies for spatial statistics, small-area estimation, and federated learning.

Awards & Recognition: 2024 Ruby Payne-Scott Medal (Australian Academy of Science), Pitman Medal (2016), first female recipient of this award in 35 years. Elected Fellow of Australian Academy of Science (2018), Academy of Social Sciences (2018), and Queensland Academy of Arts and Sciences (2018). Holds international roles including Vice-President of International Statistical Institute (2021–2025) and Scientific Council Member at Centre International de Rencontres Mathématiques (France).

Supervision & Leadership: Supervised over 36 PhD students and leads teams in >50 collaborative projects. Current supervision includes 5 PhD and 4 Masters students at QUT. Founded the QUT Centre for Data Science and previously led the Collaborative Centre for Data Analysis, Modelling and Computation.

Labs & Initiatives: Core contributor to the Australian Cancer Atlas 2.0, Virtual Reef Diver project, and Queensland's Learning Potential Fund. Active in global initiatives like the World of Statistics campaign and UN Big Data Task Teams.