Alumni Profiles

Douglas Cochran Distinguished Chair

Doug Cochran holds S.M. and Ph.D. degrees in applied mathematics from Harvard University and degrees in mathematics from MIT and the University of California, San Diego.  Since 1989, he has been on the faculty of the School of Electrical, Computer, and Energy Engineering at Arizona State University (ASU) and is also affiliated with the School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences.  Between 2005 and 2008, he served as Assistant Dean for Research in the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering at ASU. Between 2000 and 2005, Doug was Program Manager for Mathematics at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and he held a similar position at the U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research between 2008 and 2010. Prior to joining the ASU faculty, he was Senior Scientist at BBN Systems and Technologies Inc.

Doug’s research interests are in the mathematical and statistical foundations of remote sensing. He has worked on applications to radar, sonar, medical imaging. He is an award-winning educator and has a long history of professional service, including editorial positions with book series and journals.  He was General Co-Chair of the 1999 IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing (ICASSP 2015), Technical Program Co-Chair of the 2015 ICASSP co-founder of the Workshop Defense Signal Processing. He is a classic and vintage motorcycle enthusiast and is planning to conclude his stay in Australia with a solo ride from Adelaide to Perth.

Doug’s Fulbright activity will focus on emerging concepts in radio-frequency remote sensing rather than with particular emphasis on passive methods that rely on opportunistic signals. Australian researchers have leveraged their long history of excellence in remote sensing to establish Australia at the forefront of this developing area. During his Fulbright visit, Doug will collaborate extensively with colleagues in the Defence Science and Technology Group, the University of Queensland, and the Defence Science Institute. He hopes to foster an exchange of ideas that will extend well beyond the Fulbright visit.

Nicole Carter Senior Scholars

“That water availability can influence energy choices and that energy choices have freshwater implications are only recently part of the international and national debates over the future energy economy and prospects for energy and environmental security.”

Dr Nicole Carter, Natural Resources Specialist with the Congressional Research Service at the U.S. Library of Congress, Washington, DC, will come to the Australian National University in Canberra to explore factors shaping the energy sector’s water use in Australia and other water resource management issues.

“In the last decade, Australia more than any other country has invested financial and political capital in transforming its water policy. It is exploring opportunities to more efficiently use water and to more reliably meet human and environmental needs,” Nicole said. “Pursuing water policy reforms, however, is neither simple nor politically expedient. I want to learn about both the benefits and drawbacks of these reforms.”

“Climate change and new demands for water are testing freshwater systems globally. My research will investigate whether Australia’s investment in reforming water policy will allow it to better adapt and prosper in midst of increasing constraints.”

Using data compiled from government and industry sources and collected through interviews Nicole’s Fulbright research will analyse water-related decisions by the energy sector.

Her research aims to identify policies that may increase energy’s water use (e.g., promotion of some climate mitigation and renewable electricity technologies) and policies that are or could be used to manage this use. The results could inform water, energy, and climate policy in Australia and elsewhere.

The Fulbright Scholar Program will provide Nicole with the opportunity to concentrate her research and thoughts on issues of long-term significance for U.S. water policy through the lens of Australia’s experience.

Nicole has a BS (Civil Engineering) from The University of Texas at Austin; an MS (Engineering) and a PhD (Civil and Environmental Engineering) from Stanford University. She has published extensively, including many reports to Congress. In her spare time she enjoys hiking and water sports.

Dan Ventura Senior Scholars

Dan Ventura is a Professor and Director of the Machine Intelligence and Discovery (MIND) Lab in the Computer Science Department at Brigham Young University.  He and his students aspire to build artificial intelligence (AI) systems that perform tasks or solve problems in ways that would be considered creative by an unbiased observer.  In visiting the School of Art and Design at UNSW, Dan hopes to explore how such systems can positively impact society.  In particular, he looks forward to exploring the possibility of building AI systems that, for example, produce new ideas; or act as a kind of “objective” lens through which culture can be understood; or help resolve ethical questions.  Dan also hopes to incorporate a significant level of social engagement, providing the opportunity for public education and facilitating the public’s understanding of AI and its beneficial potential.

Matthew Crowley Professional Scholars

Matthew is currently General Counsel within Western Australia’s Department of Commerce, and practises extensively in regulatory law, and consumer protection in particular. Matthew is a lawyer admitted to practise in New York, Western Australia, the Northern Territory, the High Court of Australia, and Victoria, and has appeared as counsel in federal, State, and Territory courts and tribunals across Australia, including the highest State courts. Matthew holds undergraduate degrees with honours in English & History, and in Law, from Monash University in Melbourne, a Master’s degree in law from Monash, and is completing a doctorate in law at the University of Western Australia in Perth, where he is also a Visiting Lecturer from time to time. Matthew’s professional career and interests have been unusually broad, covering taxation, administrative law, customs & trade, family law & child support, employment, criminal law, property & leasing, banking & finance, native title, and ‘law enforcement’, and he has represented at least a dozen federal agencies in court. Matthew is also a reservist Legal Officer with the Royal Australian Navy.

Matthew is particularly interested in regulatory law systems, and in consumer protection regulation and modes of regulatory enforcement. Regulation is now the dominant mode of governance in developed economies, corresponding broadly with a withdrawal of government as provider of goods and services. The incapacity of legislatures to respond effectively to complex market systems has led to the rise and rise of ‘the regulator’. Matthew is also particularly interested in ‘civil penalty’ litigation as a mode of enforcement of regulatory systems. The ‘rediscovered’ civil penalty mode of enforcement, ancient in origin but with modern appeal, is a flexible and efficient tool in the regulator’s toolkit – a hybrid of criminal law-type sanctions and civil procedure – which has seen it being introduced into a wide range of regulatory schemes, which schemes are being introduced more widely. This ‘rediscovery’ in Australia has placed pressure on the courts to develop a consistent jurisprudence across jurisdictions, crystallized by its hybrid nature. In the United States a mature civil penalty jurisprudence already exists, yet many of the similar issues have never been entirely satisfactorily settled, and in fact have turned full circle. The United State’s Federal Trade Commission is arguably the world’s leading and most sophisticated exponent of regulatory law, including in particular consumer law and anti-trust (competition) law, which celebrated its centenary in 2014.

Matthew will be joining the Federal Trade Commission at its headquarters in Washington DC as an International Fellow. This will provide him with an opportunity to examine first-hand one of the world’s leading and most sophisticated regulators at a time in which the Global Financial Crisis has invited considerable public debate in the United States and Australia. This debate about regulators and regulatory systems has also focused on  the actual application of civil penalty litigation in the United States. Matthew will progress his doctoral work, a comparative analysis of civil penalty litigation in Australia and the United States as a Visiting Scholar, and hopes to meet with experts  in New York who preside over some of the biggest civil penalty cases in the world. He also hopes to meet American colleagues interested in cooperating on a forum for United States – Australia comparative law. Matthew can’t wait to share this experience with his fiancée and young family.

Sarah Dalton Professional Scholars

“Healthcare organisations around the world depend on the development of clinicians as leaders to ensure the delivery and improvement of quality care. Leadership development is a top priority for high performance healthcare organisations, with many well established programs in the United States.”

Dr Sarah Dalton, a Paediatric Emergency Physician at The Children’s Hospital at Westmead, has won this year’s Fulbright Professional Business/Industry (Coral Sea) Scholarship to go to the Anne Arundel Medical Centre. She will investigate the delivery of Clinical Leadership Development Programs in the U.S. and look for ways to apply this knowledge to the Australian Healthcare environment.

“I think that building leadership capacity is critical to improving patient outcomes and is an essential precursor to health system reform. Key lessons in leadership transcend cultures and industry, making international collaboration imperative to this field,” Sarah said.

“Australia has well established models of leadership education and hospitals are increasingly looking to translate this knowledge into in-house programs to consolidate these lessons in the workplace.”

“Elements of the U.S. healthcare system have delivered such programs for many years, making it an important resource for lessons in the delivery of clinical leadership development programs. My Fulbright Scholarship will provide me with the ideal medium to investigate these opportunities and foster national and international collaboration in this field.  I believe it is essential to identify and develop the upcoming leaders in our healthcare community, as it is their ability and their future which will see our system survive and flourish.”

Sarah has a BMed and a Master of Applied Management in Health from the University of Newcastle, a DCH from Sydney Children’s Hospital and a Paediatric Emergency Medicine Fellowship from the Royal Australasian College of Physicians. She has won a Merit Award for Academic Excellence from the University of Newcastle; a NSW Government Scholarship for Rural Medicine and has been a Rotary International Youth Ambassador in New Zealand. In her spare time Sarah enjoys biking, hiking and running as a way to explore the great outdoors.

Caroline Smith Professional Scholars

“Internationally there is an increasing focus on workforce development. This emerging area can benefit workers, employers and communities.”

Dr Caroline Smith is a Director with Skills Australia, which is an independent statutory body providing advice to the Minister for Tertiary Education, Skills, Science and Research. Caroline is the 2012 winner of the Fulbright Professional Scholar in Vocational Education and Training (VET), sponsored by the Department of Industry, Innovation, Science, Research and Tertiary Education (DIISRTE). Through her Fulbright, Caroline will go to Rutgers University, New Jersey for four months to examine the role of Regional Partnerships for Vocational Education and Training and Workforce Development.

“Improving educational and skills outcomes is a policy priority for many governments around the world. However there is increasing recognition that skills development on its own is insufficient to maximise the benefits of this investment” Caroline said.

Caroline says that to address this policy challenge, in Australia, there is increasing attention on workforce development, and planning for workforce development. Workforce development comprises the acquisition of skills, and how they are used in the workplace as well as efforts to boost participation.

“There is an important strand of work that takes a cluster based approach to improving workforce development, involving government and private sector employers and others such as education providers and not for profit organisations. Over the last decade or so this has been an area of cross-pollination of ideas between the United States and Australia,” Caroline said.

“There are many examples of clusters in Australia and the US, though there is relatively little evaluation. Workforce development planning in Australia would benefit from understanding more about what works in the US.”

Caroline’s project will enable sharing good practice in workforce development, including the role of the VET sector and will also investigate approaches to collecting regional data for workforce development planning.

Caroline has a PhD in employment relations from University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, a Graduate Certificate from the Department of Industrial Relations and BComm (Hons 1) in industrial relations and human resource management from the University of Western Sydney. Caroline’s achievements include the Overseas Student Award, UK (1999-2003) and the John Anderson Scholarship at Strathclyde University, a number of academic publications and representative roles in international agencies: the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the International Labour Organisation and the European Commission. Her interests include film, music and travelling.

Dr Aaron Pereira Postdoctoral Scholars

Aaron is a research fellow with the millimeter and terahertz research group at University of Adelaide. His research investigates emerging semiconductor technologies for space applications. He has been collaborating with researchers from US and Europe to develop high efficiency sensors and communications systems for use in hostile environments.

As a Fulbright scholar, Aaron will pursue research at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, where he will explore next generation of sensors to detect subsurface water on Moon, Mars, and other planetary bodies.

Eunice To Postdoctoral Scholars

Eunice graduated with a PhD from Monash University in 2017 where her research focused on understanding the molecular and biochemical processes that contribute to viral pathogenesis. Currently, she is working as a postdoctoral scientist whose research has improved the understanding of how cell biological processes exacerbate viral disease and developing innovative strategies for the treatment of respiratory infections.  

As a Fulbright Scholar, Eunice will be going to the Boston Children’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School to advance her understanding in the molecular basis of cell-to-cell communication, and how this communication regulates embryonic and neural development in vertebrates. She will be trained by a world-leading expert in the field, Professor Xi He, to learn how this defective regulation of cell communication causes human cancers and diseases. 

Kathleen Garland Postgraduate Students

Kate is a PhD candidate at Monash University, Melbourne. She has a Bachelor of Science from the University of Queensland and a double degree from the Erasmus Mundus Master Programme in Evolutionary Biology. Throughout her education in science, Kate became fascinated by growth processes underpinning the evolution of the diverse morphological adaptations across the tree of life. For her PhD, Kate is studying how one such universal model of growth may determine the evolution of bird beak shape.

As a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Michigan, Dearborn, Kate aims to reveal how the primordial chicken beak shape is formed by a universal model of growth and how that shape is then maintained or altered from embryogenesis to adulthood. This study is unique in its pursuit to understand a growth process across multiple areas of science, including mathematics, genetics and morphology.

Lillie Marie Haddock Postgraduate Students

Lillie earned her Bachelor and Master of Science in Biological Engineering from the University of Arkansas College of Engineering. Lillie’s work and research have centred around water quality, environmental science, and water resources engineering. With experience at Argonne National Laboratory, the Joint Global Change Research Institute, and the Arkansas Water Resources Center, Lillie is dedicated to promoting collaboration between industry, academia and government through interdisciplinary research.

For her Fulbright project, Lillie will work with the Managing Climate Variability and Change Lab group at The University of Melbourne to conduct a comparative policy and hydrological modeling analysis of water market management and accessibility between Australia and the United States. Through her research, Lillie aims to improve our understanding of the relationships between water policy and large river basin management as these basins continue to experience reduced water availability due to climate change challenges.

Adam Hines Postgraduate Students

Adam is a neuroscience PhD candidate at The University of Queensland, studying the way general anaesthesia allows complex surgeries to proceed safely and painlessly. General anaesthetic drugs have been used for over 150 years, however we still do not completely understand how they work.

Adam’s Fulbright Scholarship will take him to the University of Pennsylvania to work with Professor Roderic Eckenhoff and his team of experts in general anaesthesia to unravel how these drugs affect neurons at the molecular scale. Upon returning from the US, Adam will use his new skills to undertake translational, multidisciplinary neuroscience research in Australia.

Joseph Isaac Postgraduate Students

Joseph‘s research interests include studying contemporary forms of cultural heritage, primarily through the medium of graffiti and street art.Joseph has been a research assistant at the University of Pennsylvania, Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology for the past three years, working in the Cultural Heritage Center on a variety of projects related to the protection of cultural property. He has been listed as a co-author on three submitted position papers in support of the renewal of Memorandums of Understanding (MOUs) between the U.S. Government and the countries of Cambodia, Honduras, and Mali, and also contributed towards other projects that included creating a kinship record for the Northwest Shasta in order to help their tribe apply for federal recognition. Joseph also spent the summer of 2013 as a curatorial intern at the Museum für Moderne Kunst in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, where he assisted with the translation of English texts and museum press releases, as well as selected the film program for the museum’s exhibition on the Brazilian artist Hélio Oiticica. Joseph is currently working as a Research Fellow in the Penn Museum, where he is studying cultural heritage in conflict areas with specific attention to the current civil war in Syria. This position was the direct result of having received a Sponsored Departmental Fellowship between the Department of the History of Art and the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. He also received a Pincus-Magaziner Family Research and Travel Fund Grant from the College Alumni Society for the completion of independent research during his senior year. In addition to Joseph’s current work as a Research Fellow he is also a library assistant for the University of Pennsylvania Libraries, and volunteers at Slought Foundation, a non-profit organization that is dedicated towards engaging the Philadelphia community in public dialogue about socio-political and cultural changes within the city. During his time at the University of Pennsylvania he was also actively engaged with a variety of extracurricular activities. Joseph was a member of the History of Art Undergraduate Advisory Board and also a four-year member of the UPenn Men’s Varsity Fencing team, where he represented the Epee squad and was one of two representatives for the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee. He is also a practiced ceramicist, with over eight years of experience creating pottery and glazes.

By conducting field research on street art sites within the City of Melbourne, Joseph plans to utilize his previous experiences with cultural heritage in order to create a more positive impression of the traditionally misunderstood field of street art, and to harness the medium’s ability to act as a unifying power within a community. With an incredibly rich tradition of street art, Melbourne’s approach towards graffiti management is expected to bear significant implications towards future legislation and public policy in other parts of the world, and during his scholarship he will work towards drafting position papers that detail the merits of graffiti regulation over non-discriminative eradication.