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Mr Gavin Walker

Pronouns: he,him,his

Principal Experimental Scientist

https://people.csiro.au/w/g/gavin-walker

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Contact details:

GPO BOX 1700
CANBERRA ACT 2601 AUSTRALIA

Biography

Gavin Walker is a Principal Experimental Scientist at CSIRO. He has over 30 years experience in research and development. To transform industry with data a data ecosystem is needed. Each new data product, process or innovation creates both an impost on and an opportunity in industry. In a thriving data ecosystem industry can reach out and connect with skills, businesses and ideas it needs to realise those opportunities. The data culture of the ecosystem make the right advice easier to find. We need to understand the patterns of socio-technical systems, how to match problems to effective solutions for people and systems, that make these ecosystems effective. To understand the problems people face Gavin looks at the social context as well as the technical context. The drivers and pressures of the people involved are as important for good outcomes as the software system or information model.

Gavin has worked in a broad set of domains including: spatial information systems, environmental informatics, emergency services, traffic simulation, sensor clouds, museums, tourism, registries, cotton, skills, hydrogen and waste. Gavin developed the Water Data Transfer Format for the Bureau of Meteorology and assisted in the development of the Open Geospatial Consortium’s WaterML2.0 standard. He was also an author of the Productivity Commission's 2017 Data Availability and Use report. This report is shaping the way government sees data. It has led to the adoption of Open Banking in Australia as a first Consumer Data Right and seen the appointment of a National Data Commissioner (NDC). The NDC will oversee a new Data Availability and Transparency act and greater sharing of data across government.

Gavin has led research and engineering teams, drawing out the strengths of diverse participants to achieve project goals. An inter-disciplinary approach is critical to solving many difficult problems. Disciplines such as information modelling, natural language processing, human computer interaction, social analytics, machine learning, 3D modelling and market design work together in CSIRO to achieve outcomes not possible on their own.

Other Interests

Sustainable housing design and construction. Personal mobility. Making data work for us.

Professional Areas

Fields of Research

Current

Current Roles

  • Project cluster leader
    Knowledge Discovery and Management

Academic Qualifications

  • 1991

    Bachelor of Science (Honours)
    James Cook University

Achievements and Awards

  • 1996

    Medal for Research Achievement
    CSIRO

  • 2010

    ICTC Innovation Award
    CSIRO

  • 2015

    NSW iAward in Education
    CSIRO

  • 2016

    Medal for Impact from Science
    CSIRO

Other highlights

  • 2021-2021

    Developing a waste data collection system plan for Victoria

  • 2019-2021

    Understanding the creation and interconnection of skills taxonomies

  • 2016-2017

    Authored a report of tourism big data

  • 2016-2016

    Co-author and reviewer of the Productivity Commission's Data Availability and Use inquiry.

  • 2008-2014

    Assisted development of the WaterML2.0 suite of international standards.

  • 2012-2013

    Seconded to the Bureau of Meteorology to assist development of the Water Data Transfer Format v1.2

  • 2009-2012

    Developed the Water Data Transfer Format and supporting tools.

  • 2006-2007

    Part of a cross divisional group developing the Water Resources Observation Network (WRON) Reference Model v0.1.

  • 2006-2006

    Led a small team in OGC OWS4, where the sensor services were analysed.

  • 2005-2005

    Built the i-journal demonstrator, an interactive journal with data and computation. In the spirit of Python Notebooks.

  • 2000-2003

    Led a small team applying service integration to spatial and modelling data and hydrological models.

  • 1991-1993

    Built the Environmental Decision Support System (EDSS) for the Environmental Resource Information Network (ERIN).

Publications

We have publications by Mr Gavin Walker