Profile
Senior AI & Data Science Leader, Researcher, and Entrepreneur with 9+ years of hands-on experience delivering enterprise-scale Machine Learning, Generative AI, NLP, Computer Vision, and AIoT solutions across government, financial crime, banking, and AgTech. Recognised for translating complex technical work into measurable outcomes — from processing 30+ TB of financial crime data at the ATO, to achieving 97% budget prediction accuracy at NDIA, to securing over $740K in research grants as Lead Industrial Investigator.
Currently Lead Data Scientist at NDIA, engineering large-scale ordinal classification systems across 200+ targets using CORAL, LightGBM, and parallel processing on 425,000+ data points. Concurrently an Honorary Research Fellow at Macquarie University and active AIoT Researcher at the Adelaide University — designing plant-sensing hardware, AI agents, and smart irrigation systems for AgTech. Former Co-Founder & CEO of Clever Mushroom, Australia's first smart mushroom farm with $400K angel investment. Known for bridging deep technical expertise with research leadership, entrepreneurship, and real-world impact.
Currently Lead Data Scientist at NDIA, engineering large-scale ordinal classification systems across 200+ targets using CORAL, LightGBM, and parallel processing on 425,000+ data points. Concurrently an Honorary Research Fellow at Macquarie University and active AIoT Researcher at the Adelaide University — designing plant-sensing hardware, AI agents, and smart irrigation systems for AgTech. Former Co-Founder & CEO of Clever Mushroom, Australia's first smart mushroom farm with $400K angel investment. Known for bridging deep technical expertise with research leadership, entrepreneurship, and real-world impact.
Career Timeline
Aug 2025 — Present
Lead Data Scientist (Contractor)
National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA) · Australia
GenAILLMsAWS BedrockStreamlitLlamaIndexPosit Workbench
- Contributed to 'Holly' — internal chatbot prototype built on AWS (Streamlit, LlamaIndex, Bedrock)
- Led and built a multiclass classification system covering 200+ targets, each with 5+ categories, across thousands of features spanning numerical, text, embedding, and mixed data types
- Developed a pipeline to run and compare Random Forest, LightGBM, XGBoost, and CatBoost to automatically select the best-performing model across all targets
- Applied the CORAL framework alongside LightGBM for ordinal classification, significantly increasing processing speed at scale
- Implemented parallel processing to handle over 425,000 data points within 1–2 days
- Developed fine-tuning techniques combined with a customised hybrid scoring system to significantly improve Assessment Estimation model performance
- Achieved 97% accuracy in budget prediction models, with predicted budgets closely aligned to actual allocated budgets
- Received formal acknowledgement from the branch for significant contributions to model improvement and pipeline development
2023 — Present
AIoT Researcher (Collaboration)
Adelaide University · Australia
AI AgentsAIoTSensingHardware DesignPlant Monitoring
- Conducting research on sensing waves emitted by mushrooms, with findings extended to other plant species
- Designing hardware systems to capture plant wave signals and convert them into meaningful, actionable data
- Building AI agents for individual plants to autonomously monitor and support their growth and health in controlled environments
- Utilising micro cameras and computer vision techniques to analyse plant health and identify plant species, enabling better suggestions for optimal growing environments
- Designing and deploying a smart irrigation system for a grape farm in Victoria, helping farmers control and optimise water usage
- Developing a social network for AI agents of plants, enabling them to communicate and exchange insights on environmental data and health signals to collectively optimise growth conditions
Jul 2021 — Present
Honorary Research Fellow
Macquarie University · School of Computing
Research GrantsIndustry CollaborationConferences
- Nominated by Head of School in recognition of research contributions & industrial problem-solving
- Applied for and successfully secured an ARC Linkage Project grant of $320,562 over 3 years for advanced data analytics research
- Actively collaborating with academic researchers to co-author and publish research papers
May 2021 — Aug 2025
Senior Data Scientist / Acting Director (EL1 → EL2)
Australian Taxation Office (ATO) · SFCT & NLP/CV Team
NLPComputer VisionSparkGPU ComputingNEREntity Resolution
- Led NER, Entity Resolution & Document Classification models for financial crime investigations
- Designed pipeline processing 30+ TB of unstructured data for fraud detection
- Improved model accuracy & efficiency 4× using Spark & GPU-accelerated computing
- Achieved 90%+ accuracy on bank cheque detection using computer vision within one month
- Acting Director (EL2): managed projects, teams, stakeholder alignment & funding proposals
Jan 2021 — May 2021
Senior Analyst, Analytics & Insights
Westpac · Australia
SQLPython AutomationData Warehouse Migration
- Automated manual Excel-based reporting workflows using Python scripts, significantly reducing processing time and improving maintainability
- Supported migration from a legacy data warehouse to a modernised system, ensuring data integrity and continuity across financial reporting
Oct 2020 — Jan 2021
NLP Researcher — COVID-19 Knowledge Graph
Adelaide University · Dept. of Defence Funded
Knowledge GraphNeo4jNLP
- Conducted research and developed a comprehensive knowledge graph to model COVID-19-related data
- Leveraged Neo4j to effectively visualise and present complex relationships within the data
- Project funded by the Australian Department of Defence
Jul 2019 — May 2024 (concurrent with ATO)
Co-Founder & CEO
Clever Mushroom · Startup, NSW, Australia
StartupIoTSmart FarmingHardware DesignControlled EnvironmentAngel Investment
- Designed and built the first smart mushroom farm in NSW to cultivate exotic mushrooms, including various oyster mushrooms and lion's mane
- Secured $400K investment from an angel investor to scale operations
- Built modular smart mushroom containers within 40ft shipping containers, featuring a fully controlled environment to monitor and maintain optimal conditions for different mushroom species
- Pioneered a vision to grow mushrooms anywhere in the world, independent of local climate conditions
Feb 2019 — Feb 2020
Data Scientist
Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) · Australia
SpotfireSparkOpenCVTrading Analytics
- Built an interactive trading data analytics dashboard using Spotfire and Cloudera platform for real-time market visualisation
- Analysed large-scale trading datasets using Spark to uncover market trends and insights
- Utilised OpenCV to extract key information from documents, automating workflows based on business requirements
Oct 2018 — Dec 2019 (concurrent with ASX)
Research Engineer
Macquarie University · Smart Energy Research
Deep LearningIoTAnomaly DetectionMobile App Dev
- Researched and developed a smart socket system for real-time tracking of household energy consumption
- Created a user-friendly mobile application to enable users to monitor and control their energy usage
- Applied deep learning and machine learning models to detect anomalies and automatically categorise electrical appliances
- Classified appliances based on energy consumption patterns, user behaviour, and usage trends
Feb 2017 — Jan 2018
Data Scientist
Mojo Power · Australia
Energy OptimisationForecastingCustomer Analytics
- Developed an intelligent model to recommend optimal switching between solar, grid power, and battery storage for efficient energy usage
- Built a predictive model to forecast peak energy consumption periods, enabling proactive load management
- Analysed historical energy data to identify and understand individual customer usage patterns and behaviours