Organising Committee
Jawahar Bhalla (JB) is a passionate Systems professional with 30+ year’s experience established across multi-national organisations in technical and strategic leadership roles delivering complex capabilities across sectors. He is the president of INCOSE’s Australian chapter, the Systems Engineering Society of Australia (SESA), and contributes to the advancement of Systems Thinking, Systems Engineering and Modelling & Simulation locally, regionally, and globally. He has a BE (Aero-space Engineering), a BSc (Computer Science), a Master’s in Systems Engineering and is a current PhD candidate working on a SE Framework for the Engineering and Assurance of AI-Intensive systems. He has also served on the Board of Simulation Australasia and was recognised in 2021 as the recipient of the “Ray Page Lifetime Achievement Award” for an outstanding contribution to the advancement of Modelling and Simulation in the Australasian region.
Co-Convenor
PhD Candidate
Centre for Social Impact, Swinburne University of Technology
Deanna is an industry leader in the application of emerging technologies, including eLearning, spatial information, mixed realities and simulations in response to social and economic questions. She is currently completing doctoral research exploring the anthropology of rural entrepreneurial ecosystems through the Centre for Social Impact, Swinburne University of Technology. Her research is co-funded by the Cradle Coast Authority, a regional development organisation representing eight local governments in North West and West Tasmania, Australia. She is also an Adjunct Industry Fellow in the Cities Research Institute, Griffith University (Brisbane, Australia).
Scientific Co-Convenor
Cluster Lead—Human Factors & Operational Readiness, Appleton Institute for Behavioural Science, Central Queensland University
Anjum is an Associate Professor at the Appleton Institute for Behavioural Science, the Adelaide campus of Central Queensland University. He has over 15 years of experience across a range of domains and industry sectors and has co-edited books, written over 150 peer-reviewed articles, and secured over $5 million in research funding. Anjum researches within the intersections of human factors and operational readiness with the goal of practically translating his work back into industry. Anjum’s research has received numerous accolades and he has twice been a recipient of Vice-Chancellor’s Award for Outstanding Researcher of the year (2013 for early-career; 2018 for mid-career).
Senior Academic & Researcher,
Organising Committee, Masters Information Technology,
Philosophy PhD
Dr Amanda Davies is a Senior Academic and Researcher and holds a Doctor of Philosophy and a Masters of Information Technology. Dr Davies has been engaged in leading, developing and delivering police education and research for 20 years in Australia and the United Arab Emirates. Dr Davies research encompasses a wide range of policing and security domains with a key focus on the design of education and training for officers on the frontline and leadership positions. Dr Davies has researched and published widely on the development and evaluation of simulation-based learning initiatives for policing and the wider education community. As a recipient of I/TSEC Best from around the World simulation-based paper presentation, Dr Davies continues to research and publish to contribute to developing best practice of simulation-based learning design and application.
Dr Belinda Judd
Scientific Convenor, Organising Committee (Health), ASSH Executive Committee Member, Senior Lecturer, Work Integrated Learning, The University of Sydney
Dr Belinda Judd is a Senior Lecturer with the University of Sydney. Her clinical background is in Physiotherapy and Belinda now works in Work Integrated Learning. Belinda is active in simulation-based education in teaching, curriculum design, assessment, service and research. Most of Belinda’s simulation research explores the psychophysiological stress of learners in simulation and student assessment. Belinda is also the Deputy Chair of the Executive Committee for the Australian Society for Simulation in Healthcare (ASSH) and is currently leading the Education and Research Portfolio. Belinda is both Scientific Convenor and a member of the organising committee for the 2021 ASC.
PhD, Senior Lecturer, Organising Committee
Dr Anna Phillips, PhD, is a Senior Lecturer in Physiotherapy at the University of South Australia. Over the past 12 years, she has been responsible for the design, delivery, coordination, and evaluation of education programs incorporating simulation-based education for undergraduate and graduate entry master physiotherapy students as part of their pre-placement training. With more than 20 years’ experience in clinical education in acute care, Dr Phillips maintains her clinical expertise working as a physiotherapy clinician and clinical education support working in the intensive care unit at the Royal Adelaide Hospital. Her research expertise includes evidence-based education, research reporting and supporting student readiness for clinical placement. Dr Phillips has published more than 30 peer reviewed publications with support from many grants and continues to present this work nationally and internationally at conferences in allied health education, simulation and physiotherapy education and practice.
Organising Committee
Thomas is a Lead Consultant with Decision Analysis Services (DAS) and has spent over 20 years working in the federal government sector, including five years as Optus’ Chief Architect on the ATO account, and most recently as a Systems Engineering Advisor for CASG. He is the Technical Director for SESA (the Australian chapter of INCOSE) and a Co-Chair of the INCOSE ICT Working Group (previously Telecommunications WG), having been a foundation member of the SESA Telecommunications WG. Thomas is a chartered engineer (CPEng) and has been a Certified Systems Engineering Professional (CSEP) since 2013.
Organising Committee,
Director of Strategy (Aurizn)
Bjorn’s started his career over 20 years ago as an engineer working with the Defence Science & Technology Group before joining a large multinational Defence business where he led capability development teams in simulation and technology. With a passion for making a difference, he later co-founded elmTEK which grew to be a leading scientific engineering business, prior to merging with Consilium Technology to create Aurizn – a global player in Simulation, Advanced Sensing and Artificial Intelligence.
His career has primarily focussed on improving platform and mission survivability for current and next-generation Defence platforms, with a technical background in electromagnetic spectrum and decision support technologies, behavioural assessment and high-fidelity synthetic environments.
As co-founder and Director of Defence Strategy for Aurizn, he provides strategic development and leadership across the key business portfolios comprising Synthetic Test and Evaluation, Immersive Simulation Environments and Technology Acceleration.
He is a member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors, Submarine Institute of Australia and Simulation Australasia.
Michael McGarity