Speakers
We welcome all speakers of the 2015 AAIR SIG Forum
Cr Gerard O’Connell, Mayor Fraser Coast (Keynote speaker)
Gerard O’Connell is a true local: born and raised on the Fraser Coast. With his wife, wife Lisa, he has raised two children in Maryborough and enjoyed and contributed to the positive growth and maturity of the region.
I truly believe that there is no better place to live, work and raise your own family than here on the Fraser Coast.
Over the years Cr O’Connell has worked in many industries, including education, hospitality, motor vehicle, hardware, retail and employment services as well as being an elected Council representative since 2004. He was elected as Fraser Coast Mayor in April 2012. During his time on council he has dedicated himself to the development of business and the economic development of the region.
His vision is to protect the region’s lifestyle while attracting new business and industries, private and government investment so this naturally beautiful region can reach its full potential.
Adrian Karanfilovski
Adrian Karanfilovski is a Business Intelligence Analyst with over 8 years experience in designing, developing and implementing reporting solutions using the Kimball DW/BI methodology. He has experience in end to end, data warehousing and analytical reporting roles using a variety of technologies across the tertiary, manufacturing, human resource and service management sectors with proven exposure in delivering BI in large scale environments. Adrian is currently working at the University of Wollongong, engaged in the Learning Analytics space, to model, design and develop student activity across many of the universities source systems.
Alice Evans 
Alice Evans works as a Data Analyst in the Institute for Teaching and Learning Innovation at UQ. Alice works with quantitative and qualitative student evaluations data, and is currently exploring a range of opportunities for analytics now that UQ administers student evaluations online. These include analysis of patterns in responding to student evaluations, the relationship between student demographics and student evaluations data, and qualitative analysis of open-ended feedback from students.
Amy Wong
Amy (Wai Yee) Wong is a data analyst (analytics) in the Institute for Teaching and Learning Innovation at The University of Queensland. In her current role, she draws on her previous experience/background in student evaluation, quality assurance and assessment to explore how learning analytics could enhance the decision making process in teaching and learning in higher education.
Her research focuses on learning analytics, evaluation, teaching, learning and assessment in higher education. Amy completed her Master of Educational Studies (Advanced) at The University of Queensland in 2012. She commenced her PhD studies in April 2013. Her PhD project is at a specific discipline level – medical education, however she is applying the principles at an institution level as well. The topic of her project is ‘Consistency of examiner judgements in higher education – a case study in medical education’.
Dr Andy Pleffer
Dr Andy Pleffer is a research data specialist grounded in the tertiary education sector. He has many years’ experience in research and stakeholder management roles within both public and commercially-operated contexts. Andy has contributed to myriad high-profile government and industry-based projects and inquiries. This list includes the Joint National Communications Project, the Vocational Education and Training Workforce and Excellence in Research for Australia. Andy’s key areas of expertise are project design and implementing data quality initiatives.
Aubrey Jonker
Aubrey Jonker has been an IT professional for over 10 years. She has worked as a Microsoft SQL Server DBA and developer, and is currently working within the Business Intelligence and Reporting division at the University of Melbourne as a Reporting and Surveys Analyst. Aubrey is also studying towards a Masters in Computer Science at RMIT University. She is interested in researching the applicability of big data processing methodology for university metrics, specifically around research performance.
Cliff Ashford
Cliff has had a long and varied career in IT since his debut as a dangerously inexperienced and enthusiastic Oracle database designer at British Telecom in 1988. At the millennium he took two years off to travel and scuba dive before returning to the industry with a new found enthusiasm for all things BI. Over the last twelve years Cliff has run BI projects in a variety of fields from pharmaceuticals to telecommunications, from financial organisations to travel companies, and this has provided him with a rich insight into the key techniques for ensuring BI programmes produce insight rather than invoices, and deliveries rather than documents.
Craig Napier
Craig Napier is a Business Intelligence Program Manager and has led the strategy development and execution of a Business Intelligence program at the University of Wollongong that embeds analytics and information to deliver insights into innovative new solutions. He has in excess of 15 years’ experience in data intensive environments both domestically and internationally and is a lecturer in Business Analytics at the University of Wollongong. Prior to this role Craig was the Systems Manager at the $62 million SMART Infrastructure facility where he was integral in the establishment of the Information and Data Discoverability Centre and Project Manager of a nationally funded research grant creating an Infrastructure Dashboard demonstrating the interrelationship and consumption demands across major utility networks. Craig is a CPA with a Bachelor of Business from University of Western Sydney and a Master of Business Administration (distinction) from the University of Wollongong.
Daniel Zamykal
Daniel Zamykal is a former James Cook University PhD student who specialised in statistical modelling for precision agricultural purposes within the Australian Sugarcane Industry. He joined the now Quality, Planning and Analytics team in 2009 as a statistical analyst and is currently the Manager, Reporting and Analytics. He managers the Universities student load and income model, statutory reporting requirements, business intelligence project and the provision of analytics and statistical services to the University. He is passionate about data and the potential of his Information to Analytics team. Aside from his wonderful wife and sometimes less wonderful three children, his personal interests include keeping and breeding rare forms of green tree python, his two dogs and all things gardening.
Fiona Margetts
Fiona Margetts is a highly competent, experienced and solution-oriented project manager well known within the University of Southern Queensland (USQ) for effectively delivering results.
As Project Manager of the Policy Refresh Project, and now Manager (Policy Services), Fiona led the development and implementation, and now ongoing management, of multiple streams of activity to deploy the University’s governance-level Policy and Procedure Framework. This occurred during a period of organisational change while managing the redevelopment and successful delivery of a new system and publication platform for the University-wide, public-facing Policy and Procedure Library, all achieved within a pressing timeframe and well managed cost envelope.
Earlier this year Fiona graduated ‘With Distinction’ with a Master of Project Management (with a specialisation in Leadership) and is enjoying a lapse in formal study while considering future options and taking advantage of other professional development opportunities, such as presenting at the AAIR SIG Forum.
Dr Glenn Harrison
Dr Glenn Harrison is an academic developer within the Learning, Teaching and Student Engagement Directorate at James Cook University. Glenn has 20 years of tertiary teaching, research and administrative experience, specialising in large class health science subjects. His current work in teaching quality and scholarship centres around the roll out of a new online student survey system at JCU, and embedding student feedback in subject and course development, review and improvement. He works closely with JCU Quality Planning and Analytics staff to operationalise institutional data warehouse dashboards and improve academic, managerial and professional staff knowledge and use of these comprehensive data sources. Glenn also engages academic staff around subject and peer review, data procurement and presentation for learning and teaching awards and promotions. His personal research interest is in first to second year student transition (sophomore slump). In his spare time (sic) Glenn enjoys fishing, motorcycle riding and naturally….bearding.
James Mitchell
James has been working for Altis Consulting since 2001 and has worked across a range of industries in Australia and New Zealand using a range of ETL, Data Warehouse and Business Intelligence technologies. James was the lead Altis consultant involved in the School’s Scorecard project.
Dr Megan Kek
Megan Kek received her PhD in education from the University of Adelaide in 2007. Prior to joining University of Southern Queensland, Megan’s tertiary academic work was largely in Singapore, focusing in marketing education and problem-based learning. She has worked as lecturer, academic manager, educational developer, and quality evaluator. She was a team recipient of The Enterprise Challenge Award for excellence in curriculum innovation from the Singapore Prime Minister’s Office in 2001 and 2003. The award recognised the most outstanding team whose project has created the highest new value to the public service. Her research interests include educational environments, student learning, problem-based learning, academic development and use of student data. She believes in contributing to her academic community by actively reviewing for a range of international journals including Studies in Higher Education, Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education, Higher Education, and British Journal of Educational Technology.
Melanie Reimann
Mel holds a double undergraduate degree with major fields of study in Accounting, Finance and Business Law. She is a qualified CPA and holds a Master of Business Administration with a specialisation in Public Management. Mel started her career as an External Auditor with a large Charted accounting firm then saw the light (apologies to any auditors in the room) and moved into Local Government for almost 5 years an Asset Accountant, specifically focused on the financial reporting of non-current assets. She has been at USQ for 7 years in various financial management roles and currently oversees the budgeting, management reporting, financial reporting, financial systems, insurance, taxation and research accounting for the University.
Dr Michael Lane
Dr Michael Lane is a Senior Lecturer in Information Systems in the School of Management and Enterprise, at the University of Southern Queensland. He has a PhD in Information Systems from the University of Southern Queensland. Michael maintains strong links with industry and ICT professionals through his teaching research and consultancy. Michael’s research is concentrated on some key aspects of the Digital Economy including Business and analytics, Information Security, Digital Futures in rural and regional communities, Mobile computing, and ICT Leadership transforming and transitioning organisations in a digital economy. Michael has obtained external funding for economic, technological and societal impacts of broadband adoption use and utilisation in rural and regional Australia. He has published a number of papers on these research topics in internationally recognised journals and conferences.
Pallavi Khanna
Pallavi Khanna is currently a senior load planning analyst with the Australian National University. She has been with Planning and Performance Measurement at the ANU for four years, working in statutory reporting and analysis before moving to student load planning. Pallavi has a master’s degree in Finance and has a particular interest in applying her skills in financial and statistical modelling to student data. Her role as a senior load planning analyst has involved setting up the load planning function, model, systems and processes for the ANU. In the last year, Pallavi has been integral in the implementation of the student load planning model in IBM Cognos TM1.
Paul Wright
Paul Wright has worked in Data Warehousing for 14 years. First in the NZ Ministry of Health then HBOS (which was taken over by Lloyds Bank) and for the last four years has been Data Architect in the Corporate Intelligence Unit at UNE.
Peter Kokinakos
Peter Kokinakos is the Customer Advocacy Manager for Cortell Australia, the region’s largest and most experienced provider of IBM’s Business Analytics and Business Performance Management solutions.
Peter has over 3 decades of experience in Business Analytics. He has invested all this time trying to understand how organisations use, abuse, confuse and peruse their data in order to make decisions.
In addition to Cortell Australia, he has worked for leading Business Analytics companies such as Cognos, SAS and IBM bringing new products, big ideas and innovation to Australian organisations. Peter holds a Bachelor’s degree in Computing Science from the University of Technology, Sydney (UTS). His association with Australian universities continued with the CASMAC initiative from the early 1990’s and has been following the changing landscape in the Australian Higher Education market closely.
Ram Radhakrishnan
Ram Radhakrishnan has around 12 years of experience in various roles specialising in Business Intelligence and Data Warehousing with in-depth experience in planning and implementing a range of information data management solutions. He has played many key leadership roles with a proven track record in delivering business intelligence and data warehousing implementations for various clients across industries. Ram has been with Analytics8 since 2010 and has worked extensively with many different universities such as Macquarie University, University of Sydney and University of Technology, Sydney (UTS). Ram's key area of expertise are in Enterprise Data Warehouse, Integration, Business Intelligence Reporting and Master Data Management.
Dr R.Senaka Arachchi
Senaka Arachchi is a Management Information Analyst attached to the Planning and Performance Reporting at the University of Adelaide. He has been working in the Higher Education sector for nearly 15 Years. He has post degree work experience in statistical applications and research in both national and International research organisations. He holds a Bachelor Honours degree in Economics from University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka, a Master degree in Social Statistics from University of Southampton, UK and a PhD degree in Population Studies from University of Adelaide.
Robert Wood
Robert Wood is the senior business intelligence analyst at the University of Southern Queensland. He leads the technical development, maintenance and support of the USQ’s Data Warehouse and Business Intelligence platform. Robert has over five years of experience in dimensional modelling, ETL design and business intelligence development.
Stephen Marshall
Stephen Marshall is currently a Business Intelligence Analyst within the Business Intelligence and Reporting Division of the University of Melbourne. With a background in Mathematics and Science education, he has worked in a range of roles in higher education, including the management of an undergraduate physics laboratory and coordination of HEPPP funded University access programs. Recently he has been closely involved with the analysis and reporting relating to outcomes and pathways for students from equity backgrounds, as well as the development of the University’s geocoding capabilities.
Steve Hitchman
Steve is the founder and CEO of MIP Australia and a leading authority in the Data Warehousing Industry. With over 20 years’ experience Steve has considerable expertise in delivering successful Data Warehousing and Business Intelligence solutions across a broad spectrum of client industries.
Steven Power
Steven Power is a BI/DW architect with a thirst for knowledge, who enjoys pushing the bounds of the standard BI mold. Steve leads the development of UNE’s new enterprise data warehouse and was instrumental in raising awareness around the need for improvement of Data Management practices at UNE. During his 8 years at UNE, Steve has been an integral part to UNE’s successful and visionary BI program.
With a degree in Computer Science, he started his career as a software engineer. This saw him work in the finance, education and wholesale industries and start his own software business.
He is a sport fanatic that loves coaching and playing football. In his spare time, Steve enjoys the outdoors with his wife and 3 children, camping, fishing and getting out on the water.
Susan Day
Susan is MIP’s visual analytics lead. She is passionate about visualisation and spatial and predictive analytics and the modern tools which make this accessible for more people to answer business questions and yield insights which drive action.
Susan has studied at 3 unis (ANU, USyd, UNSW) and worked at various others (eg UWS, UNSW, Uni Newcastle, UC).
Susan has worked in Data Warehouse and Business Intelligence, Management Information Systems and Spatial and Socio-economic Analytics and Modelling for many years. Her private sector consulting experience spans retail, banking, insurance, pharmaceutical, manufacturing and the resource sector. Her public sector experience includes State and Commonwealth Government (Defence, health, environment, emergency services, land titles), Tertiary institutions and Research organisations such as CSIRO and NATSEM.
Susan Gibson
Susan Gibson is an information technology leader with approximately 15 years experience in various roles specialising in Business Intelligence and Data Warehousing.
Throughout her career she has been responsible for the successful development and implementation of many BI and data warehousing projects as a consultant for vendors and in key leadership roles across various industries including FMCG, Banking and Education. In all these positions she has worked extensively with the executive and senior leadership teams in setting Business Intelligence Strategies and roadmaps, vendor evaluation and selection, scoping, prioritising and evaluating and assessing Return on Investment. She has also previously been a hands on Business Analyst and BI Practitioner so has a good understanding of the complexities of BI and data warehousing environments.
Susan enjoys the diversity of her work across the whole university environment and is passionate about producing a positive user experience by utilising the latest technologies and building successful partnerships with the user community.
Talitha Cornelsen
Talitha Cornelsen has worked in Planning Services at Flinders University for 8 years. She has held a variety of different roles within Planning Services and has specialised in Load Modelling for the past 4 years. Talitha is currently Flinders' senior load planner.
Tim Davison
Tim started his career in IT as a Systems Administrator at Healtheries in Auckland. In between server upgrades and performance tuning, he was tasked with developing the company’s reports and building a small Data Warehouse. Using his newly acquired BI skills, Tim spent two years contracting in the UK as a Business Objects developer. Tim returned to Auckland in 2009 and joined AUT as a Data Warehouse and Business Intelligence Developer.
Tim O'Dea
Tim is a proud kiwi originating from Massey University in New Zealand. Tim moved to Oz in 2012 to take up a Project Manager BI role at JCU in North Queensland. This year however Tim foolishly migrated south to the merciless winter of Victoria to take on a new strategic role at La Trobe University within their Digital Learning space. Tim is presently on secondment from ICT to LTU’s Learning & Teaching unit and has a wide project portfolio from implementing new digital technologies such as ‘One Button Studios’ which are low touch video recording booths for staff and students to Business Intelligence projects that support Learning Analytics.
Vriti Mehra
Vriti Mehra is a Senior Business Analyst at the Planning & Performance Measurement division within The Australian National University (ANU). Vriti manages key reporting projects and works with clients, service providers and the data warehouse team to elicit business requirements, perform analysis, develop technical specifications and prototypes to deliver reporting solutions that contribute to the University’s planning framework.
Having worked in the BI team for over 4 years now, Vriti also provides advice and assistance to key stakeholders on how reporting and analytics delivered through the University’s management reporting portal can meet their current and emerging information requirements.
Vriti holds a Master of Business with a specialisation in Project Management and takes a lead role in developing business processes, templates and establishing standards to streamline project delivery. She is also a trained report author with proficiency in both relational and multidimensionally modelled data.