Our team is targeted at enhancing the capabilities (skills) of researchers in digital tools and technologies. Being part of the Intersect community allows our member researchers to benefit from our research and training expertise across various disciplines, including ICT, Data Science, Linguistics, Engineering, Statistics, Bioinformatics, Health & Medical Sciences, Materials Science, Sports Science, Spatial Analytics, and more.
Our eResearch Services Team support the world-class research done at our member universities, providing expertise in data storage and management, programming and software, HPC and cloud computing, IT planning and grants, complimenting locally delivered IT services.
Meet our team
Aidan Wilson
Digital Research Services Manager
View Bio
Email:
aidan.wilson@intersect.org.au
Academic Background:
Master of Arts, Linguistics
BLib. Stud., Linguistics
About:
Aidan Wilson is Intersect’s Digital Research Services Manager, helping supervise and mentor the team of Digital Research Analysts based on site at member universities, and managing Intersect's training program. Prior to this role, Aidan was the DRA at Australian Catholic University, where his role included administering the REDCap system, delivering user training, and supporting ACU’s users with consultation and advice. Since joining Intersect as a Digital Research Analyst in 2015, he has worked across several universities with research from a diverse range of disciplines. He is also a REDCap developer, having published several External Modules, and is active in the consortium community, assisting other administrators with tips, tricks, and troubleshooting.
Aidan has a Masters by Research in Linguistics from Melbourne University, where his research was focused on the verb morphology of the Traditional Tiwi language, from the Tiwi Islands, Northern Territory. He has 9 years of experience at PARADISEC as data manager, archive systems officer; 7 years as Field Linguist and researcher.
Personal Interests:
Australia's Indigenous languages. Data management. Automation and solution design. Cycling, bicycle maintenance, crosswords.
DJ Ladeinde
Digital Research Analyst - University of New England
Master of Data Science Bachelor of Mathematical Sciences
Personal Interest:
Supporting researchers in achieving their best research goals and outcomes using REDCap, graph databases and machine learning
Experience:
Ayodeji Ladeinde is Intersect’s Digital Research Analyst at UNE where his role includes administering the University's REDCap instance, delivering user training, and supporting LTU researchers towards achieving their goals and outcomes. Before his current role, he worked overseas at a Reserve Bank for over 10 years, leading process improvement and policy development for secondary market operations as well as managing the Real-Time Gross Settlement System.
DJ has a Masters in Data Science from Deakin University, He discontinued his PhD at Monash University in June 2023 due to family commitments and his research was focused on the use of graph databases for requirements analysis.
Dr. Jeff (Xingyong) Wang
Digital Research Analyst - Western Sydney University
Computational study of chemistry, biophysics and nanomaterials.
Experience:
Jeff Wang is the Intersect Digital Research Analyst for Western Sydney University, with a research background in Computational Chemistry. He is the WSU Qualtrics Brand Admin and one of the WSU REDCap administrators. Jeff has more than 3 years’ experience in delivering training courses and supporting researchers on the use of digital research tools, such as Qualtrics, REDCap, and Excel.
Dr. Jianzhou Zhao
Digital Research Analyst - University of Technology Sydney
Training and researcher engagement. Engineering system design and optimisation. Renewable energy innovation.
Experience:
Dr Jianzhou Zhao is a Digital Research Analyst based at University of Technology Sydney. Jianzhou holds a PhD in Photovoltaics and Solar Energy Engineering. He has 6+ years as an digital research training instructor and coursework demonstrator; 2+ years as a Project Manager and a Research Assistant.
Dr Jianzhou Zhao has been a Digital Research Training Specialist at Intersect for 5 years and, since July 2023, he has been the DRA for UTS.
Jianzhou is working with his colleagues at Intersect and the UTS eResearch team to help guide the development and deployment of relevant eResearch services; and, increase the visibility and acceptance of good eResearch practices across all areas in the university.
PhD Information Science Master of Arts (Digital Library Learning) Grad. Dip Info Studies Bachelor of Music
Personal Interests:
New and emerging roles for information professionals, particularly around data science, research data management, and in the GLAM (galleries, libraries, archives and museums) sector; Digital Humanities; Public Libraries' relationship to the Public Sphere.
Experience:
Dr Katherine Howard is Intersect Australia's Digital Research Analyst for UniSA. She supports UniSA researchers by providing expertise in various digital tools and technologies, facilitating access to NCI's HPC (Gadi), and coordinating Intersect's training program for UniSA staff and students. Katherine's background is in Information Science and she has extensive national and international experience as a researcher and academic. Katherine was most recently a Research Fellow with the ARC-funded 'Library and Information Science Research in Australia' (LISRA) project, aimed at enabling and encouraging research in Australia's library and information profession. Prior to this, she was an Early Career Development Fellow at RMIT; has held academic positions at QUT and UniSA; and undertaken sessional work with Curtin University and Charles Sturt University. Dr Howard has received many scholarships and research awards. She was awarded a two-year scholarship to undertake the Erasmus Mundus International Master in Digital Library Learning, studying with world-renowned Information Science scholars in Norway, Estonia and Italy. Katherine was the first person outside of North America to win a Eugene Garfield Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship, and her PhD, completed at QUT, was nominated for an Outstanding Doctoral Thesis Award. Katherine's research focuses on new and emerging roles for information professionals, particularly around data science, research data management, and in the GLAM (galleries, libraries, archives and museums) sector. She also has a keen interest in the Digital Humanities.
Dr. Olivia Davies
Digital Research Analyst - Australian Catholic University
PhD, Evolutionary Biology BSc (Hons) Ecology, Evolution, and Chemistry
Personal Interest:
The use of data in complex problem-solving, adaption and resilience of communities and biological systems to changing conditions, education
Experience:
Olivia Davies is a Digital Research Analyst based at Australian Catholic University. She has a background in biological sciences, having completed a PhD in molecular and evolutionary biology applied to Australian’s glorious native bees. Olivia has also worked in local government on the challenges of climate change resilience and mitigation in the community. With 8+ years experience in data and statistics teaching, Olivia is passionate about meaningful, straightforward, and best practise application of data analysis to problem-solving and research.
PhD, Exercise and Sport Science Bachelor of Exercise and Sport Science (Honours) Bachelor of Business (Sport Management) Bachelor of Commerce (Economics)
Personal Interests:
Physiology and psychology of endurance exercise, macroeconomics, education.
Experience:
Dr Sam Ryan is a Digital Research Analyst at Intersect Australia, based at La Trobe University. He is a Doctor of Exercise Science with research experience in quantitative data collection and analysis methods, data management practices, and teaching of research technologies to research students and early career researchers. He remains an active researcher in the field of exercise science alongside his work with La Trobe researchers and is currently completing a Bachelor of Commerce majoring in Economics. He has 6 years as a Sport Scientist in professional football, 5 years as an active researcher at Australian Catholic University and University of Technology Sydney, 3 years as a Sessional Teaching Academic at La Trobe University.
Glen is a Data Scientist working on project-based work with the 3AI team. He has 9 years experience working on Data Science and Electronics Engineering with the last 5 years working with researchers to increase their capability to conduct data intensive research.
Expertise:
4602 (Artificial intelligence) 4603 (Computer vision and multimedia computation) 4605 (Data management and data science) 4611 (Machine learning) 4009 (Electronics, sensors and digital hardware) 3103 (Ecology) 4207 (Sports science and exercise) 3003 (Animal production)
Personal Interests:
Working with researchers to develop novel insights within data intensive research projects especially through the use of sensors and image recognition technology.
PhD, Applied and Plasma Physics (ongoing) BSc (Hons I ), Physics
Personal Interests:
Applied plasma physics for nanoparticle fabrication and implementation in biomedical applications. Passionate about conveying my knowledge to the scientific and public community.
Experience:
2+ years of research experience in plasma polymerised nanoparticle and their biomedical applications; 5+ years as a tutor for students at various academic levels.
Spatial analytics, ICT4D, Applications of technology in education, public sector, and research.
Experience:
Marium joined Intersect as the DRA for University of Adelaide in 2021. She has over 10 years of experience incorporating technology and data analytics across multiple industries (including education, health, corporate sector, governance, and research) and multiple geographies (USA, Pakistan, Singapore and Australia). Marium has a background in computer science with a Masters in Educational Technology.
Peta Scott
Digital Research Analyst - University of New England
I have a personal interest in using behavioural economics to create communities and improve business functions. The reuse of data is also a point of passion.
Expertise:
Peta Scott has been the Intersect Digital Research Analyst at the University of New England since late 2018. Peta has a broad research background spanning environmental science, mental health, higher education, learning analytics, and behavioural economics. Peta has expertise in both qualitative and quantitative research methods, practices, and software with specialisations in R programming, SPSS, Qualtrics, and NVivo. Peta also prides her work on strategic projects at UNE focussing on business improvements. Peta also enjoys supporting researchers by simplifying complicated programs and processes. Peta has years experience in higher education research, corporate analysis and strategic projects.
PhD, Multidisciplinary Research on TB (ongoing) M Computer Science B Math/ B Science
Personal Interests:
Artificial Intelligence algorithms and application, Time series forecasting, Medical Informatics.
Experience:
Seng Hansun is a PhD candidate in South West Sydney, UNSW Medicine & Health, UNSW Sydney. His research focuses on the machine and deep learning area for Tuberculosis disease detection. He has extensive experience in learning and teaching programming languages, including Python and R, for more than 10 years. He is also an enthusiast in artificial intelligence and machine learning domain.
PhD, Electrical and Computer Engineering Master of Telecommunication and Information Systems Bachelor of Electrical Engineering and Automation
Personal Interest:
Digital platforms and approaches in broad research disciplines on data acquisition, visualisation, analysis and automation. Support researchers to achieve their best research goals and outcomes.
Experience:
Dr Xiaoying Wang is Intersect’s Digital Research Analyst at Deakin University (Burwood campus). She has a PhD of Electrical and Computer Engineering from RMIT and worked with Cook Medical and RMIT on multiple university-industrial collaborative projects for 4 years as a postdoctoral researcher, with research focus on computer vision, image processing, machine/deep learning and data analysis. She has 7 years of experience in high-quality collegiate teaching on engineering and computer science subjects. She has also designed and established digital platforms to support interdisciplinary projects in biomedical research, material and manufacturing research for automatic data characterisation, visualisation and analysing using MATLAB, C++ and R languages.
Bsc (Honours), Information Technology BSc, Games Development
Experience:
Natalie brings a strong background in digital research and learning design. She completed her PhD in Analytics at UTS, where she developed an innovative literary visualisation technique. She also has extensive experience as a Casual Academic and Research Assistant at UTS, and previously worked as a Learning Designer and Project Lead at Guroo Learning, creating learning solutions for various clients, including universities. Her skills include strong communication, data analysis, and an ability to translate technical information for non-technical audiences.
Philosophy and History of Science, Data science, Programming, Statistics, Data Visualization, Scientific Conversations, Knowledge Sharing, and research.
Experience:
Ali is currently a second year PhD student in Biomedical Engineering at UNSW with over 9 years of research experience through his PhD studies, and as a research assistant in various labs from 2013 till present. He has been programming using Excel, R and bash (Linux) for over 5 years and has a strong background in the analysis of health and biological data resulting in the publication of several bioinformatics papers. During the past 5 years he has been able to develop required specialised skills and gain lots of experience in both programming and data analytics (statistical and Artificial Intelligence-based approaches) which gave him a strong capability in teaching students how to start programming and how to design an efficient analysis pipeline in the Excel, R and bash environments. He has over 4 years of teaching data analytics in both R (statistical analysis, scripting and visualization) and Bash (package development) programing languages. He also has several hours teaching bioinformatics experience at University of Sydney and UNSW as casual tutor.
PhD Applied Mathematics (UNSW) Master of Applied Mathematics (ANU)
Personal Interests:
Using mathematical and numerical methods to solve real-world problems
Data-driven models
Programming languages
Experience:
Dr Sahar Masoudian is a Digital Research Analyst at Intersect, based at the University of Canberra. She holds a PhD in Applied Mathematics from the University of New South Wales. Her research focused on applying stochastic approaches to bushfire research to incorporate uncertainty related to environmental inputs into the modelling process. Since 2016, she has been tutoring and teaching statistics and mathematics courses at various universities.
Dr. Ankit Beniwal
Digital Research Analyst - Adelaide University, Flinders University
BSc, High Performance Computational Physics (Honours) (First Class), University of Adelaide
Personal interests
Data collection, visualisation, and analysis; using data science and machine learning tools to solve complex problems
Experience
Dr. Ankit Beniwal is a Digital Research Analyst at the University of New England, commencing his new role in mid-May 2024. He holds a PhD in Theoretical Physics from the University of Adelaide and has garnered extensive research experience during his tenure as an associate at King’s College London, UK, and UCLouvain, Belgium, over a period of 5 years. Transitioning to the industry, Ankit brings over 8 years of expertise in utilising diverse programming software and operating high-performance computing systems. He is now dedicated to leveraging his academic background to explore machine learning tools and advance data-driven solutions in both research and practical applications.
Master of Public Health - MPH, Reproductive and Child
BSc, Public Health
Experience:
Eskedar Mekonnen is a Digital Research Trainer at Intersect Australia. She is also a PhD candidate at the Robinson Research Institute, University of Adelaide. With a background in Epidemiology, Eskedar possesses extensive skills in research design and analysis. Eskedar has years of experience working with diverse data types and analysis methods, including Machine Learning and longitudinal data collection and analysis. She is skilled in various research software programs, including R, Qualtrics, and REDCap.
Leta holds a Bachelor’s degree in public health from Dilla University (2017) and a Master’s of Public Health in Epidemiology from Jimma University (2020), Ethiopia. He has served as a lecturer and researcher at Salale University, where he taught courses such as Epidemiology, Research Methods, and Data Management while also taking on various academic positions. Currently, Leta is pursuing a PhD in Genetic Epidemiology, focusing on the intriguing roles of human endogenous retroviruses in neurodegenerative diseases.
Mr. Iko-Ojo Simon, BSc, MSc, is a PhD candidate researching Algorithm Debt in Machine Learning and Deep Learning Systems. He earned his Bachelor’s (Hons.) and Master of Science (MSc) degrees in Computer Science from the University of Jos, Nigeria.
Prior to starting his PhD, Iko-Ojo served as an Assistant Lecturer in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Jos, where he was involved in both research and teaching in the areas of Computer Science and Software Engineering.
He is currently a sessional academic at the Australian National University, where he tutors students in various Computer Science courses.
