Over the past year, AURIN has welcomed Ali Asghari, Tim Leonard and Annie Wu to our Data Team, as well as Jason Kreitner, who has moved from his position as Finance Officer to Data Officer.
Dr Ali Asghari is a Data Engineer. He holds a PhD in Geomatics from the University of Melbourne, with a thesis on 3D spatial data validation in urban land administration. He has been engaged with various geospatial projects and led different civil projects in Iran as a skilled land surveyor for more than ten years. He has authored and co-authored several research articles in high-level journals contributing to geospatial knowledge, and has extensive experience in running tutorial sessions and delivering lectures to university students.
‘I am so proud to be part of such a great and talented team at AURIN. Helping to facilitate the development, deployment and support of advanced data for the adoption of high-impact research within academia, industry and government across Australia is extremely satisfying. AURIN provides me with the opportunity to build and expand my geospatial skills and utilise them to add value to Australian communities and people’s lives.’ — Ali Asghari
Tim Leonard is a Data Officer. He has a Bachelor of Science in Physics from RMIT. Before moving into a data role at AURIN he worked as a Geophysicist for a software company in a consulting role for two and a half years. He has experience working with a wide range of geolocated data, with a particular focus on datasets within Australia. Tim enjoys cooking, motorsport, and hiking, and hopes to hike the Tasmanian overland track one day.
‘I feel so lucky to be part of such a talented and driven team at AURIN. Being able to see the benefits of our work through the high-quality research done in the High Impact Projects is incredibly rewarding and motivates me to provide the best data that we can. I’m excited to be part of AURIN’s new data provider, delivering a new way for researchers to access data.’ — Tim Leonard
Annie Wu is a Data Officer. She holds a Master of IT from the University of Melbourne. Annie’s passion for data science can be dated back to her undergraduate years when she was completing her geology degree at University of Melbourne. During this course, she used 3D modelling techniques and geo-statistical workflows to generate a new Thermal Index dataset to identify and determine cleaner brown coal areas, assisting to reduce CO2 emissions. In 2019, Annie decided to return to study to gain a solid foundation in programming and analytics. She joined AURIN in late 2021 upon completing her Master of IT.
‘I’m proud to be part of a project that provides eInfrastructure and eResearch support to researchers around Australia. Being a data enthusiast, I’m passionate about manipulating and transforming data to unlock their potential values which will benefit the whole community. AURIN is the place that will constantly help me grow and develop, I’m looking forward to getting involved in different projects and thriving with the organisation.’ — Annie Wu
‘I am blessed to be surrounded by colleagues in the AURIN Data Team who possess amazing technical skills and even more amazing attitudes. I learn something new every day, and relish opportunities to apply my developing skills to supporting the research community. — Jason Kreitner
We’re excited to have this wide range of skills as part of the AURIN Data Team, working with Josh Clough, AURIN’s Data Lead, and Ivan Widjaja, who has moved back to the team as a Data Architect, and look forward to continuing our work on developing and providing a range of datasets and tools for researchers across Australia.