Joining me in episode 37 is Associate Professor Lina Yao! She is currently a Scientia Associate Professor at the School of Computer Science and Engineering. She is a member of the Faculty of Engineering Research Committee.

Lina was awarded the Australia Research Council (ARC) Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA) in Oct. 2015, Inaugural Vice Chancellor's Women's Research Excellence Award (University of Adelaide) in Apr. 2015, Scientia Fellowship (UNSW) in Dec. 2019, and Vice-Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Higher Degree Research Supervision in the Emerging Supervisor Category (UNSW) and UNSW Faculty of Engineering Excellence Awards for Academic Excellence in Category of Education Excellence in 2020.

She is also the winner of 2021 Australia and New Zealand Women in AI Awards in the category of AI in Cybersecurity

Lina is directing the Data Dynamics Lab (D2 Lab) where they strive to develop generalizable and explainable data-efficient data mining, machine learning and deep learning algorithms—as well as designing systems and interfaces—to enable novel ways of human-machine interactions, including an improved understanding of challenges such as robustness, trust, explainability and resilience that improve human-autonomy partnership. They are also interested in a broad range of applications in Recommender Systems, activity recognition, Brain Computer Interface and Internet of Things. Their research is motivated by, and contributes to, various applications in Healthcare Informatics, Cyber Security, Transportation, Defence, Industry 4.0 and FinTech. Details can be found here

Visit their Youtube Channel for a closer look at their research.

Before Lina joined UNSW in 2016, she was a lecturer and an ARC reseach associate at The University of Adelaide (UoA). She received her PhD degree and Master degrees both from UoA in July 2014 and July 2010, respectively. Prior to that, she obtained her Bachelor degree from Shandong University (SDU). She worked at China Unicom as an engineer and studied a Master's degree at Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications (NUPT).

Today we chat about:

• Huge congratulations to you, you won the Women in AI : Cyber Security award – what does this award mean to you?

• You are building cyber defence systems that can self-diagnose, defend and heal when faced an attack – can you tell us more about your work?

• All technology we use, whether It’s a phone, computer or a robot, we are all vulnerable to cyber attack what is your advice to users?

• How many cyber attacks happen in Australia on a daily basis?

• How robust do you think Australia is as a nation in defending and being aware of cyber security?

To contact Lina email her at lina.yao@unsw.edu.au