First published 24 October 2024
Dr Leah South from the QUT School of Mathematical Sciences has received the Paul Bourke Award for Early Career Research from the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia for her leading contribution to computational statistics research.
Her more than 15 publications, many published in some of the most prestigious journals, have focused on the development and refinement of statistical algorithms which underpin the analysis of complex data.
Dr South (pictured above) has developed new methods, including: scalable Monte Carlo (simulation-based) methods which facilitate the analysis of big data; sequential Monte Carol algorithms that enable analyses to be updated in real-time; and approximate Bayesian computation which facilitates analysis of complex physical and social systems.
An example of Dr South’s original approach is found in her most cited paper on ‘Bayesian synthetic likelihood’ that challenged the traditional paradigm for constructing a statistical models and enabled more generic, model-agnostic estimating methods. This approach has been used in fields as diverse as finance, biosecurity and ecology.
Dr South was nominated for the award by Distinguished Professor Kerrie Mengersen, who is the director of QUT’s Centre for Data Science and Professor Adrian Barnett.
Professor Mengersen said algorithms that enabled trusted, efficient and replicable analyses of data were essential to most fields of science and social science.
“The adverse consequences of biased or inefficient algorithms have led to harmful outcomes such as racial profiling and Robodebt,” Professor Mengersen said.
“Dr South's research addresses these issues by providing theoretically valid and practically useful algorithms for complex data analysis.
“Her novel research into alternative methods for specifying statistical models has enabled more effective analysis of complex data for improved decision-making in science, business and society.
“A practical example of the contribution her work has made is the use of her methods for government monitoring of a severe banana pest which led to new scientific insights and social changes in northern New South Wales agricultural communities.”
Dr South has developed open software packages that enable global researchers to implement her research methods with her three major software packages published on the rigorous, selective, open-source platform, CRAN, and have been downloaded more than 100,000 times.
Dr South received an ARC Discovery Early Career Research Award and has been honoured by the International Society for Bayesian Analyses.
As one of Australia’s leaders in computational statistics, Dr South has established an international reputation and has delivered invited presentations in Germany, US, UK, Norway and Australian and given more than a dozen invited seminars across Australia and the UK.
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