Jess Robertson Email & Phone Number

Wellington, New Zealand

Building great environmental science for NZ based on the most innovative technology I can get my hands on. Supercomputing, AI, quantum, space …

Wellington, Wellington Region, New Zealand

Auckland, New Zealand

Wellington, Wellington Region, New Zealand

I led NZ's innovation policy function, advising the Minister of Research Science and Innovation within the NZ Government. We worked to grow a thriving, internationally connected innovation system within NZ, capable of taking NZ's frontier scientific and technical ingenuity and growing it for impact on the world stage. My team had policy responsibilities for deep tech and high tech startups and innovation, business R&D investment (including developing the New to R&D and Ārohia Innovation grants and the R&D Tax Incentive in year payments), to commercialisation and investment in NZ research, and for Callaghan Innovation.

Wellington & Wairarapa, New Zealand

Provided strategic thought leadership and change management for MBIE's Energy Resources Markets branch as they pivoted to a new approach to data management and insight, a migration to cloud, and a changing, more connected role within NZ's resources and energy economy. My role was to provide the technical and business vision to drive change, including advising senior leadership on strategy and direction, while bringing the doers in the business along for the journey.This included development and procurement of a new cloud-based platform for data management, ERM Explorer. This is currently being put into production to manage MBIE's 2.5 petabytes of technical geoscience data and reports. This platform will enable ERM to manage their data within existing budget envelopes while providing more flexibility and a better experience for stakeholders across NZ.

Perth, Australia

A core member of the team delivering the OZ Minerals Explorer Challenge. Developed cloud-based data infrastructure to clean, manage and serve terabytes of exploration data from OZ Minerals via an open portal to thousands of innovators globally for the Explorer Challenge (Australia’s biggest crowdsourcing competition).Provided technical leadership & sales support with partners and acted as a technical point of contact for a community of over 7000 innovators internationally. Developed and managed data science competitions on industry data across the mining value chain, including secure serverless APIs for automated scoring of submissions.

Perth, Australia

Supported the program lead through the development of a practical syllabus covering the skills professionals need to leverage the new world of data science within their industry domains. Coordinated a team of technical experts from Curtin, CSIRO, and UWA to deliver the course, while also delivering content on data science strategy, exploratory data analysis, machine learning, and approaches to natural language processing and geospatial data. This formed the basis for Core's expanded program across Australia for 2019.

Perth, Australia

Worked to bridge the gap between research and industry by providing cutting edge innovative science that is immediately applicable to industry problems.Managed several agile and collaborative R&D projects applying data science and machine learning for major public and private sector clients. An example was the Smart Surveys project; this involved the development and deployment of a field-deployed platform for rapid field geochemical analysis and machine learning-driven sampling. Delivered in four months, with development cost of project ($300 k) recovered in efficiency savings from a single deployment at Coompana for the Geological Survey of South Australia.Pioneered the use of cloud & big data facilities as a fundamental tool for applied research within CSIRO, particularly for development and deployment of machine learning models internally and externally into production for clients. Helped drive CSIRO cross-business unit strategy in DevOps, cloud, machine learning workflows and data management.Personally developed multiple analytics libraries in Python, C/C++, Fortran, MATLAB, R and other languages/frameworks. Many have been released as open source, some commercialised (e.g. wavelet clustering optioned by REFLEX via the DETCRC for inclusion in ioGas) and some continue to support innovative research.- Development of new projects targeting immediate industry problems- Contributing to Digital + Domain strategies for Minerals and Data61 collaboration- Developing strategic IT services support for cloud-based research delivery with CSIRO IMT- International consulting on developing data science capabilities within large organisations- Exploring new ways of funding applied CSIRO research in exploration- Thought leadership on data-driven science, paper publications and conferences etc

Perth, Australia

Managed and delivered cross-disciplinary machine learning projects using geoscience and data science teams across CSIRO Minerals and Data61. A key engagement was with BHP Olympic Dam; I lead a team from CSIRO Minerals and Data61 to develop predictive characterisation from hyperspectral core scanning, resulting in quantitative core data at mm resolution, delivered in minutes not months, and a reduction in cost from ~$1000/m to ~$50/m.Building a cross-disciplinary data science capability within CSIRO Minerals:- Driving new methods for cross-disciplinary collaboration between CSIRO Minerals and Data61 - Industry engagement and solution delivery- Technical leadership and project delivery of externally funded projects- Strategic work on new Python libraries for geoscientific analysis- Building new platforms for geoscientific and geospatial analysis incorporating new machine learning techniques- Leveraging web services and virtual e-research environments to accelerate geoscience data analytics- Deploying and managing cloud resources and developing new architectures for delivering our research- Thought leadership and strategic development for Minerals into data-driven science and digital disruption in the resources industry- Enabling CSIRO geoscientists to leverage new data science techniques through teaching and learning as well as developing new tools

Australian Resources Research Centre, Kensington, Perth

Carrying out research in fluid dynamics of magmatic flows, specifically around the formation of sulfide ore bodies.- HPC and scientific computing, computational fluid dynamics - Machine learning and data science, data reduction and visualisation- Various communication activities: paper writing, scientific seminars, teaching, workshops, conferences etc

Hobart, Tasmania

Delivered technical courses on magmatic ore genesis at CET, University of Western Australia, and CODES, University of Tasmania as part of the Master of Economic Geology programme. (part time)

Canberra, Australia

Carried out research on the fluid dynamics of lava flow emplacement

Involved the analysis of the structure and chemistry of rocks which are part of the ultra-high pressure metamorphic terranes on Ios, Greece. Work included thin-section, structural and microprobe analysis, as well as the creation of a new high-pressure differential geo-thermo-barometer using amphibole geochemistry based on probe data and THERMOCALC.

Canberra

During a summer scholarship at the Research School of Earth Sciences I investigated the stability of lava domes using analogue models in the GFD laboratory. The aim of the research was to find was that the domes could undergo sector collapse via a viscous mechanism.

Phd, Earth Physics

Bsc(Hons), Geology, Honours, First Class

Geology major with main focuses on structural geology, metamorphic and igneous petrology and tectonics. Also studied physics.

Dipabrsm, Music Performance