EMBL Australia

Prof Craig Simmons

Chief Scientist for South Australia

Professor Craig T. Simmons FAA FTSE is Chief Scientist for South Australia. He is a leading
groundwater scientist, recognized for contributions to groundwater science, science
leadership, education, and policy reform, working across the public and private sectors. He is
Pro Vice-Chancellor of the College of Engineering, Science and Environment at the University
of Newcastle. Craig was Foundation Director of the ARC National Centre for Groundwater
Research and Training, Pro Vice-Chancellor Research at Flinders University, and Executive
Director for Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry and Earth Sciences at ARC. Craig is a Fellow of
the Australian Academy of Science, Australian Academy of Technology and Engineering and
American Geophysical Union. He has received awards including the Australian Academy of
Science Anton Hales Medal for distinguished contributions to research in the Earth Sciences,
South Australian Scientist of the Year, Australian Water Professional of the Year, and
International Association of Hydrogeologists Presidents’ Award. He is a lead author of the
United Nations World Water Development Report “Groundwater: Making the Invisible
Visible” and coauthor of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
(IPCC) Sixth Assessment Report.

Jo McEntyre

Interim Director, EMBL-EBI

Jo became Interim Director of EMBL-EBI in March 2025, following her role as Deputy Director in 2024 and Associate Director of Services (2019–2024). She also leads EMBL’s Office for Science Information Management (OSIM), promoting open science practices. From 2009 to 2022, Jo headed Literature Services at EMBL-EBI.

Before joining EMBL-EBI, Jo was a staff scientist at NCBI, NIH, and Editor at Trends in Biochemical Sciences. Her work focuses on integrating open-access literature with life sciences data, driving innovations in text/data mining, curation, and scientific credit systems. Jo holds a PhD in plant biology from Manchester Metropolitan University.

Renee Winzar

Senior Manager, Development, ACAMI (Australian Centre for AI in Medical Innovation)

As the Senior Manager, Development at ACAMI, La Trobe University, Renee is focused on accelerating the development of medicines from bench to beside by developing bespoke AI solutions across the medical research lifecycle.

Renee previously served as a Senior Scientific and Policy Advisor at mRNA Victoria, part of the Victorian State Government where she drove policy and strategic investment programs aimed at fostering Victoria’s RNA ecosystem. Prior to working for Victorian Government, Renee worked in consulting at KPMG and EY, where she helped companies from biotech and pharma sectors to access the R&D Tax Incentive program and competitive strategic grant funding. Renee has a PhD in medical carbohydrate chemistry and biochemistry from Griffith University.

Nora Liu

Associate Professor Jimmy Breen

The Kids Research Institute & Australian National University

Dr Jimmy Breen is the Chief Data Scientist of the Indigenous Genomics research group at The Kids Research Institute Australia in Adelaide. His group is the primary curator of multi-omics datasets produced in the South Australian Diabetes Study (PROPHECY – Predicting Renal, Ophthalmic, and Heart Events in the Aboriginal Community), a project aimed at assessing the levels of complications in Aboriginal people with Diabetes.

Justine Clark

Interim Director, EMBL-EBI

Jo became Interim Director of EMBL-EBI in March 2025, following her role as Deputy Director in 2024 and Associate Director of Services (2019–2024). She also leads EMBL’s Office for Science Information Management (OSIM), promoting open science practices. From 2009 to 2022, Jo headed Literature Services at EMBL-EBI.

Before joining EMBL-EBI, Jo was a staff scientist at NCBI, NIH, and Editor at Trends in Biochemical Sciences. Her work focuses on integrating open-access literature with life sciences data, driving innovations in text/data mining, curation, and scientific credit systems. Jo holds a PhD in plant biology from Manchester Metropolitan University.

Associate Professor Bastien Llamas

Adelaide University

Assoc. Prof. Bastien Llamas leads the Molecular Anthropology Group at the University of Adelaide’s Australian Centre for Ancient DNA (ACAD). He has honorary affiliations with the Black Ochre Data Labs (Adelaide) and the National Centre for Indigenous Genomics (NCIG; Canberra). Bastien is an expert in genomics and palaeogenomics who investigates a range of molecular mechanisms that facilitate human adaptation to diverse environmental and cultural stressors. His research ranges across population history and personalised genomics, and focuses on integrating past and present genetic diversity and assessing the relationships between peoples and places through time.

Workshops Proudly supported by the ARC Centre of Excellence for Mathematical Analysis of Cellular Systems (MACSYS)

Prof Lan Nguyen

Professor Lan Nguyen leads the Computational Systems Oncology Program at SAiGENCI. He brings deep expertise in integrating computational modelling with advanced biological techniques to study cancer. After completing a PhD in Computational Systems Biology, he trained at Systems Biology Ireland before joining Monash Biomedicine Discovery Institute in 2015, where he built a highly interdisciplinary lab combining modelling and experimental work. Internationally recognised for developing sophisticated, experimentally validated models of signalling networks and drug resistance, his work has revealed new systems-level insights and identified therapeutic strategies. His research appears in journals including Nature Cell Biology, Cell Systems, eLife, Nature Communications, and Cancer Research.

Dr Anthony HArt

MACSYS, SAiGENCI

Dr Hart is a molecular, systems biologist who specialises in building mechanistic models of protein signalling networks. He uses such models to investigate how protein network adaptations can facilitate resistance to cancer treatments. His current research is centred around understanding how differences in patient’s cancers translate to differences in drug response to better inform patient drug treatment strategies.

Dr Lucy Ham

The University of Melbourne

I am an applied mathematician and Senior Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the ARC Centre of Excellence for the Mathematical Analysis of Cellular Systems (MACSYS) at the University of Melbourne. I specialise in stochastic processes, applied probability, and nonlinear dynamical systems. My work develops analytical and computational frameworks for stochastic gene regulation, noise-driven cell-fate decisions, and multicellular patterning, combining tools from probability theory, stochastic differential equations, and spatial stochastic modelling, with applications to quantitative and synthetic biology.

Workshops Proudly supported by the ARC Centre of Excellence for Mathematical Analysis of Cellular Systems (MACSYS)

Prof Eduardo Eyras

Australian National University

Eduardo Eyras’ career in Computational Biology began in 2001 at the Sanger Institute, creating early tools for alternative splicing prediction while contributing to multiple international genome projects. From 2006, as an ICREA Professor at Pompeu Fabra University, he pioneered machine learning approaches in RNA biology. Since 2019, as EMBL Australia Group Leader at ANU, his team develops AI-based methods for RNA biology, with a strong focus on long-read sequencing, RNA modifications, and protein-RNA interactions. Beyond research, he mentors early-career scientists, fosters interdisciplinary collaborations, and contributes to national initiatives in RNA technology and high-performance computing.

Professor Richi Nayak

Queensland University of Technology

Richi Nayak is a Professor at the School of Computer Science, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia. Her research focuses on leveraging artificial intelligence to address societal challenges, with contributions in bioinformatics, social media mining, deep learning, multi-view learning, matrix/tensor factorization, clustering, and recommender systems. She has received multiple best paper awards, QUT Postgraduate Research Supervision awards, and the 2016 Women in Technology (WiT) Infotech Outstanding Achievement Award. She holds a PhD in Computer Science from QUT and a Master’s in Engineering from IIT Roorkee, India.

Dr Ke Ding

Australian National University

Ke Ding is a computational biologist and machine learning researcher developing large-scale genomic foundation models at ANU. His work covers DNA/RNA language modeling, high-performance computing, and large-scale model training for genomic and transcriptomic prediction tasks. He is especially interested in advancing genomic foundation models and leveraging HPC systems to accelerate biological discovery.

Workshops kindly presented by Australian BioCommons

Dr Benjamin Goudey

AI Technical Lead, Australian Biocommons

Ben brings a longstanding research interest in AI, genomics, and predictive modelling. He completed his PhD at the University of Melbourne, focusing on novel computational approaches to large-scale genomic data analysis. From 2013 to 2021, he was a Research Scientist at IBM Research, then rejoined the University of Melbourne as a research fellow in Computing and Information Systems and later at the Florey Center for Neuroscience.

His work spans research, consulting, and development across multiple areas of life sciences, from predicting cochlear implantation success to assessing genetic risk for human diseases. Ben has extensive experience in AI and statistical analysis of large genomic and life-science datasets.

Dr Giorgia Mori

Training and Communication Officer

Giorgia is an experienced trainer and communicator, passionate about communicating technical topics with diverse audiences and using art to make learning more engaging. She studied Molecular Microbiology, finishing her PhD in 2014 at the University of Pavia, Italy. Giorgia’s wide-ranging career began in academia, spending 8 years studying tiny invisible worlds and delving into the mysteries of the human microbiome. She subsequently joined the battle against cancer at the European Institute of Oncology, where she quantitatively validated clinical genomics workflows to perform various bioinformatics tasks. Giorgia discovered her passion for education while supervising, teaching and training students to develop computational skills for conducting efficient and reproducible research, and became an Instructor and Trainer with The Carpentries community.

Now at BioCommons, Giorgia combines her technical expertise with her love for training, focused on the BioCloud Division’s initiatives.