• Are you passionate about the development of visualisation methodologies to facilitate spatio-temporal decision-making in agriculture?
• Want to access CSIRO’s world-class facilities and resources while completing your PhD?
• Apply for a QUT-CSIRO PhD scholarship now!

CSIRO and QUT are offering a joint scholarship to a PhD candidate who has undertaken studies in Data Science, Mathematics, Statistics, or Computer Science. You will get the opportunity to work on a cutting-edge project in digital agriculture and play an integral role in the development of visualisation methodologies for the interpretation of modelled output and uncertainties to facilitate decision-making.

Project Title: Turning predictions into decisions: innovation to facilitate spatio-temporal decision-making in the agricultural sciences

Project Details:

As agriculture meets the digital age, we are faced with challenging decisions about when to sow, when and how much to fertilise and when to irrigate. With the aid of high performance computing, models that represent complex agricultural processes can be used to simulate a wide range of farming scenarios in space and through time. Coupled with other sources of information (e.g. measured data and expert information) the challenge becomes being able to quantify the uncertainties and interpret the outputs in such a way that can facilitate on-ground decision-making.

This PhD project will develop cutting-edge statistical machine-learning methods, as well as innovative visualisations and interactive experiences to facilitate spatio-temporal decision-making in agriculture.

With the recent advancements and interest in the communication of uncertainties to guide decision-making, this research is timely. It will complement the current suite of activities within Digiscape, a future science platform within CSIRO that is helping to bridge the gap between agricultural science and digital technology to improve prediction and forecasting in agricultural systems to assist in spatio-temporal decision-making.

This project will have direct input into the Digiscape platform, led by Dr Petra Kuhnert. Digiscape is bringing to bear:

• cutting-edge climate science
• new sources of locally and remotely sensed data
• informatics for agro-ecosystems
• rigorous analysis of uncertainties
• innovation in both the ICT and social dimensions of systems integration.

For further information on this project please visit: https://www.qut.edu.au/research/study-with-us/student-topics/topics/turning-predictions-into-decisions-innovation-to-facilitate-spatio-temporal-decision-making-in-the-agricultural-sciences

Location: Brisbane, QLD
Scholarship: $37,596 per annum (base stipend of $27,596 and a top-up of $10,000), plus up to a maximum of $5,000 per year for project costs (to be agreed between CSIRO and QUT on a case by case basis)
Tenure: Up to 3 years (concordant with PhD at QUT)
Reference: 61464

Contact: For more information please contact Dr Erin Peterson at erin.peterson@qut.edu.au.

About CSIRO

At CSIRO you can be part of helping to solve big, complex problems that make a real difference to our future. We spark off each other, learn from each other, trust each other and collaborate to achieve more than we could individually in a supportive, rewarding, inclusive and truly flexible environment.

How to Apply

Applications for this scholarship are being accepted by QUT.  For details on the eligibility criteria and application process, please see the QUT website:https://www.qut.edu.au/study/fees-and-scholarships/scholarships/qut-csiro-digital-agriculture-phd-scholarships/_nocache (please note you will need to submit your scholarship application to Dr Erin Peterson at erin.peterson@qut.edu.au)

Applications close

Applications will remain open until a suitable candidate is found.