Rene Hexel

Professor René Hexel currently serves as Dean (Learning & Teaching) and Pro Vice Chancellor (Sciences) at Griffith University, where he directs the Cyber-Physical Systems Lab. With over 85 peer-reviewed publications, he specializes in safety-critical real-time systems and autonomous system verification.

• 2022–present: Dean (Learning & Teaching), Griffith Sciences
• 2016–2022: Deputy Head of School (L&T), Griffith School of ICT
• 2007–2016: Director for Internationalisation, Griffith School of ICT
• 1999: PhD from Vienna University of Technology

His research focuses on safety-critical systems, time-triggered protocols, and human-in-the-loop AI, with applications in aerospace, automotive, and healthcare robotics. Recent work explores humanoid robots for dementia care and verifiable executable models.

Key article trends show expertise in:

• Formal verification techniques
• Robotics communication protocols
• Explainable machine learning
• Real-time system architectures
• Embedded system validation
• Human-robot interaction design

Research grants include:

• Australian Space Manufacturing Network (2023–2025)
• SPASE STEM program grant (2022)
• Social media wellness monitoring (2019–2020)
• Internal Griffith grants (2003–2010)

He has supervised 12 PhD candidates across topics including:

• Autonomous system verification
• Robotics security
• VR sickness mitigation
• Intelligent control systems
• Distributed real-time architectures

Professor Hexel previously held academic positions at Vienna University of Technology and founded an IT consulting firm specializing in safety-critical systems.