Associate Professor David Paul
Associate Professor in Computational Science - Faculty of Science, Agriculture, Business and Law; School of Science and Technology
Biography
A/Prof Paul is a computer scientist interested in: the Internet and distributed systems; security and privacy; teaching and education; and computational number theory. He has experience with nation-wide research projects such as the Australian Schizophrenia Research Bank, the QuON Web survey system, and the ASKBILL prediction system.
Dr Paul completed his PhD at the University of Newcastle, Australia, working on a service-oriented computing project that concentrated on improving cooperation between multiple different parties even when they are unaware they are working together. This resulted in a new model that allows both service providers and consumers to better determine the level of service they should offer or accept.
From 2005 to 2015, Dr Paul was working as a member of the Australian Schizophrenia Research Bank. In this role, he designed, developed, and maintained a large nation-wide database and Web application linking clinical, neurological, and genetic information of both people with schizophrenia and linked controls, and providing mediated access to researchers.
In 2012, he also joined the University of Newcastle’s Health Behaviour Research Group. A lot of the research performed by this group requires the use of surveys and other online interventions, but existing survey systems did not meet all their needs. Along with other research, Dr Paul was part of a team that designed and built the QuON online survey system, which has been used in multiple institutions around Australia.
In 2015, Dr Paul joined the University of New England as part of the new interdisciplinary computational science team. Since starting at the University of New England, his research interests have broadened. For example, his work has involved helping the SheepCRC create the ASKBILL system, which notifies farmers of unusual risks to their sheep. This system combines livestock and pasture information with historic and forecast weather conditions to predict when sheep are at risk from heat or chill events, flystrike, or worm burden. This allows a farmer to more efficiently manage their farm, while also improving the welfare of the animals.
While still interested in the areas of mental health and agriculture, Dr Paul is also interested in expanding to other application areas. These include more traditional computer science areas such as optimisation and software defined networking, and external areas such as mathematics and sports science.
