Dr. Stefanie Kethers1, Dr. Chris Baker2, Dr. James Camac2, Hamish Holewa1
1ARDC, Melbourne, Australia, 2University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia
Biography:
Dr. Stefanie Kethers is the Program Manager (Data Challenges) at ARDC. Stefanie’s main interest is in supporting people to collaborate towards common goals. Her main background is in Computer Science, and she has been working in the eResearch sector for over 15 years.
Dr. Chris Baker is a Senior Research Fellow at The University of Melbourne in the School of Mathematics and Statistics, the Melbourne Centre for Data Science and the Centre of Excellence in Biosecurity Risk Analysis. Dr. Baker’s background is in applied mathematics, ecological modeling and epidemiology. They are the project lead for “Enhancing Models for Rapid Decision-Support in Emergency Animal Disease Outbreaks”
Dr. James Camac is the Project Manager of Biosecurity Commons – a cloud based risk analytic platform for informing biosecurity policy and operational decision-making. Dr. Camac is a senior Research Fellow within the Centre of Excellence for Biosecurity Risk Analytics at The University of Melbourne. His background is in quantitative ecology and biosecurity risk analysis.
Abstract:
Long-term strategies are needed to ensure Australia has a resilient and sustainable food industry that maintains its reputation for delivering high-quality food nationally and internationally.
The ARDC established its Food Security Data Challenges program to create innovative digital infrastructure solutions to improve research into Australia’s production, consumption and distribution of safe and high-quality food. As part of the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS), the program is developing national scale data and digital infrastructure capability aligned with national priority research areas through its portfolio of 10 mission driven projects (https://ardc.edu.au/multiproject/food-security-data-challenges-projects/), providing data solutions in areas including agriculture, aquaculture, antimicrobial resistance, traceability and food provenance, biosecurity, nutrition, food equity, and food relief.
In this presentation, we will give an overview of the ARDC’s Food Security Data Challenges program and show how some projects within this program build on infrastructure developed through other ARDC initiatives, including the ARDC’s Planet Research Data Commons (https://ardc.edu.au/planet-research-data-commons/). We will provide a detailed example showing how the “Enhancing Models for Rapid Decision-Support in Emergency Animal Disease Outbreaks” Food Security Data Challenges project led by the University of Melbourne with partners Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (DAFF) and CSIRO, extends the functionality of Biosecurity Commons – a cloud-based biosecurity decision-support platform – for estimating and managing animal disease risk.