Joining me today is Dr Simona Mihaita. Simona is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Technology in Sydney, founder and leader of the Future Mobility Lab. She is an industry-focused academic delivering value for people living in smart cities via her strong engagement with the government and several industry partners. Her research focus is to improve people's movement via artificial intelligence in a smart city context.

Simona holds several leadership roles securing funding over $5M in initiatives such as the Australian-Singapore Strategic Collaboration via a joint NRF-ARC Linkage Project, the "Premiere's Innovation Initiative" for easing congestion leading to ICMP (Intelligent Congestion Management Program), the "On-Demand Mobility" trials in Northern Beaches with Keolis Downer, the impact of Electric Vehicles with AEMO, the Automatic Road Star Rating with TomTom, the positioning accuracy of connected trucks with TfNSW, etc.

She is the winner of the 2022 Women in AI Awards – Infrastructure category, a triple finalist in the 2021 IoT Awards – Smart Cities, 2021 ITS Australia for Transport Data Excellence and for R&D Excellence, the winner of the 2018 ITS Australia National Awards for Research Excellence, finalist in Smart City Awards 2019, awarded Monash Business School Scholarship for Women in Leadership 2018, nominated for the 2019 Prime Minister's Science Awards, and interviewed by Channel 7 News and The Guardian.

Follow her on LinkedIn and reach out to her at Adriana-Simona.Mihaita@uts.edu.au