Dr Quanxi Shao

/ch'uan-sh'i/

Senior Principal Research Scientist

https://people.csiro.au/S/Q/Quanxi-Shao

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PO BOX 1130
BENTLEY WA 6102 AUSTRALIA

Biography

Dr Quanxi Shao is currently a senior principal research scientist in CSIRO Data61. He works on a wide variety of projects in environmental sciences, water resources research and hydrology, Agriculture, and has managed research teams in several national projects. He led his division into a new direction with his hydrological work, and has played an important scientific leadership role in representing his division in Water for a Healthy Country Flagship projects by that time. The multidisciplinary working environment requires his broad statistical expertise.

His research activities include statistical trend analysis for hydroclimate data, uncertainty framework and uncertainty analysis, water accounting and estimation, statistical downscaling, data disaggregation., extreme event modelling, Statistical prediction and forecasting. Amongst these activities, Dr Shao has been actively developing new statistical methods in non- and semi-parametric inference, model/variable selection, quantile approach, time series analysis and spatial statistics. He also extends his research into social media data analysis and financial risk assessment.

Prior to his current work, he has worked on many environmental projects, such as Port Phillip Bay Environmental Study, Sydney Water Ocean and Inland STPs, Salt Scenario 2020 of Western Australia, Sydney Olympic Park Environmental Monitoring Project, Melbourne Water's Eastern Treatment Plant Project, and Perth Long-Term Ocean Monitoring Programme. He contributed significantly to the methodology developments in Water Information Research and Development Alliance (WIRADA) with the Australian Bureau of Meteorology throughout its 8 year life and Northern Australia Water Resources Assessment (NAWRA). He is also a project leader in CSIRO Computational and Simulation Sciences TCP program and CAS-CSIRO Joint Research Program.

Many of his works became defacto national ‘standards’, such as the method for Water Quality Guideline adopted by Australia and New Zealand government as national standards. His trend analysis tool with change point detection is still used for groundwater level monitoring. His work on flood and low-flow frequency analysis as well as the event-based extreme modelling and prediction are widely recognized in scientific community.

Dr Shao currently focuses on forecasting plant water stress as part of dynamically managing irrigation regimes in CSIRO DigiScape FSP, and leads multi-million dollar project with the Australian Bureau of Meteorology to assess the reliability on non-Bureau of Meteorology automatic weather stations as part of Drought Resilience Mission.

Dr Shao is an innovative scientist with not only strong disciplinary research capability but also deep knowledge of other disciplines. He published strongly in both disciplinary and applications in highly reputed international scientific journals. His disciplinary publications cover distribution theory, extreme value theory, non/semi-parametric statistics, time series analysis, spatial statistics, change point problem, embedded model problem, model/variable selection and quantile regression. His applications cover water quality monitoring and modelling, flood and low flow frequency analysis, impact of land use change and climate change on water resources, trend analysis, streamflow forecasting, statistical downscaling, and uncertainty analysis, trend analysis and change detection, crop water stress for smart irrigation, prediction of crop growth.

Dr Shao is very active in the international scientific society. He successfully organized the annual Conferences of the International Environmentrics Society (TIES2005 and TIES2014) in Beijing and Guangzhou where he was the conference chairman. He was also the TIES treasurer from 2006-2008 and board of directors from 2010-2015. He served as members of scientific committees of several international conferences. He has several adjunct/honorary professorship positions in both Australia and overseas. He has established long-term research collaborations with both Australian and International researchers in both disciplinary and application research.

Professional Areas

Fields of Research

Current

Applied Statistics (010401)

Former

Applied Statistics (010401)

Current Roles

Project Leader
Improving S2S prediction using Machine Learning
Project leader
Trusted Private Automatic Weather Stations
Analytic Lead
DigiScape WaterWise Project
Project leader
Improving Dynamical Subseasonal to Seasonal Drought Prediction Through Machine Learning Techniques Based on Large Hydro meteorological Data

Academic Qualifications

1995

Ph.D. in Statistics
La Trobe University
1991

Graduate Diploma in Economics
University of Adelaide
1987

M.Sc. in Probability Theory and mathematical Statistics
Sun Yat-sen University
1984

B.Sc. in Mathematics
Sun Yat-sen University

Professional Experiences

2020-present

Senior Principal Research Scientist
CSIRO Data 61
2019-2022

Group Leader
CSIRO Data61
2015-2022

Team Leader
CSIRO Data61
2007-2020

Principal Research Scientist
CSIRO Mathematics Informatics and Statistics, CSIRO Computational Informatics, CSIRO Data 61
2002-2007

Senior Research Scientist
CSIRO Mathematical and Information Sciences
1998-2002

Research Scientist
CSIRO Mathematical and Information Sciences
1995-1998

Post-Doc Research Fellow
IPPP Biometrics Unit, CSIRO Centre for Mediterranean Agricultural Research
1995-1995

Research Associate
Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics Unit - Centre for Adolescent Health, Royal Children's Hospital, Melbourne, Australia
1994-1994

Research Assistant
School fo Statistical Science, La Trobe University
1987-1990

Lecturer and Director of Computing Laboratory
Economics Department, Sun Yat-sen University

Achievements and Awards

2022-2022

Entrepreneurship Award (Seminal Contributor of WaterWise Team)
CSIRO
2021-2021

R&D Excellence Award (member of NAWRA Team)
Australian Water
2021-2021

R&D Excellence Award (member of NAWRA Team)
Australian Water ACT Chapter
2020-2020

Collaboration Medal (Significant Contributor of NAWRA Team)
CSIRO
2017-2017

CAS-CSIRO Exchange Program
CSIRO
2016-2016

Medal for Impact from Science (Seminal Contributor of WIRADA Team)
CSIRO
2016-2016

3rd Prize in AgData Challenge
CSIRO AgCatalyst
2014-2014

Distinguished Visiting Scholar
Guangzhou University
2014-2014

CAS-CSIRO Exchange Program
CSIRO
2011-2011

2011 Top 100 Influential Scientific Papers in China
Chinese Scientific Information Bureau and Ministry of Science and Technology
2011 -2011

CAS-CSIRO Exchange Program
CSIRO
2006-2007

Non-cash Award
CSIRO Mathematical and Information Sciences
2006-2006

Innovation Award
CSIRO Mathematical and Information Sciences
2005-2005

Teamwork Award
CSIRO Mathematical and Information Sciences

Other highlights

2019-2019

Member of Scientific Committee, STAHY2019 (International Commission on Statistical Hydrology (ICSH) of the International Association of Hydrological Sciences (IAHS))
2019-2019

Member of Scientific Committee, International Conference on Environmental Statistics: Air Pollution, Climate Change and Beyond
2015-2015

Member of Scientific Program Committee, 60th World Statistics Congress (The International Statistical Institute) (WSC2015): July 27-31, 2015, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
2014-2014

Chairman of the organizing Committee and Member of Scientific Committee, The International Environmetrics Conference (TIES2014): December 15-19, 2014, Guangzhou, China
2013-2013

Invited discussant, WSC 2013 (the 59th ISI World Statistics Congress), Hong Kong, 25-30 August 2013
2010-2010

Member of Ruling committee, International Symposium on Statistics & Management Sciences 2010. 29-31 October 2010, Nanjing, China
2006-2006

Invited TIES special Session organizer "Statistical Hydrology", 2008 International Conference on Applied Probability and Statistics (CAPS2008). 1-3 December 2008, Hanoi, Vietnam
2006-2006

Member of Scientific Committee and Theme Convenor of Modeling technique in water resources planning and management, Hydrological Sciences for Managing Water Resources in the Asian Developing World: June 8-10, 2006, Guangzhou, China
2005-2005

Chairman of the conference, The International Environmetrics Conference (TIES2005): August 21-26, 2005, Beijing Friendship Hotel
2002-2002

Member of Organizing Committee, International Conference on Applied Statistics, Actuarial Science & Financial Mathematics (ICAAF2002), December 17-19, 2002, Hong Kong

Community and Corporate Citizenship

2017-Present

Adjunct Professor, Department of Mathematics & Statistics, Curtin University of Technology, Australia
2019-Present

Member, Physics Industry Advisory Panel, University of Western Australia
2010-2015

Member of board directors and regional representative, The International Environmetrics Society
2008-Present

Guest Professor, School of Water Conversancy, Changsha University of Science and Technology, China
2008-Present

External representative of Advisory Board, Department of Mathematics & Statistics, Curtin University of Technology, Australia
2006-2014

Adjunct Associate Professor, Department of Mathematics & Statistics, Curtin University of Technology, Australia
2006-2008

Treasurer and Board member, The International Environmetrics Society
2006-Present

Senior Advisor, The Chinese Society of Environmental & Industrial Statistics
2004-Present

Guest Professor, Institute of Geography & Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China.

Publications

We have publications by Dr Quanxi Shao