Max Ward

Max Ward is a Lecturer at The University of Western Australia (UWA), affiliated with the School of Physics, Maths and Computing and the Australian Centre for RNA Therapeutics in Cancer. His roles include teaching in Computer Science and Software Engineering while conducting interdisciplinary research in algorithms, computational biology, and AI/ML. He holds a PhD from UWA (2019) and has held postdoctoral positions at the University of Adelaide and Harvard University.

Education:

• PhD in Computer Science, UWA (2019)
• Postdoctoral Researcher at Harvard University (until Dec 2022)

Research interests focus on algorithms, graph theory, RNA structure prediction, and machine learning applications in healthcare and cybersecurity. Key projects include developing RNA folding algorithms (e.g., JAX-RNAfold) and cybersecurity frameworks for network hardening.

Grants:

• "Computational Creativity to Cross Cultural Frontiers" funded by Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (2022–2024)

Labs/Teams: Collaborates with the Australian Centre for RNA Therapeutics in Cancer and contributes to UWA's interdisciplinary research initiatives.