The Random Sample

Each year, the L’Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science Program recognises a small number of exceptional female early‑career researchers in Australia and New Zealand with a prestigious fellowship. In 2025, for the first time since the program began in 2007, the award went to a mathematician: Dr Maria Kleshnina from QUT’s School of Mathematical Sciences.

Maria’s research is in game theory – an interdisciplinary field grounded in the mathematical sciences that studies how people make decisions when their outcomes depend on the actions of others. In this episode, we explore why game theory matters, the kinds of real‑world problems it is designed to tackle, and how it has become a powerful way of thinking across economics, politics, and – in Maria’s area of interest – conservation.

Maria is a Senior Lecturer at QUT, an Australian Research Council DECRA Fellow, and a Chief Investigator with the Securing Antarctica’s Environmental Future initiative. We spoke with her about her research, her career journey, and what it means to be awarded a L’Oreal-UNESCO Women in Science Fellowship.

Our host is Dr James Nichols.

Episode webpage: https://www.therandomsample.com.au/podcast/game-theory/ ‎

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The Kalman filter is a hidden mathematical tool with an enormous impact on our daily lives.

Most people have never heard of it – yet it quietly powers everything from spaceflight and aviation to our GPS, smartphones, and wearable devices.

Developed in the late 1950s and early 60s, the Kalman filter provides the optimal solution to this problem:

If you have an imperfect prediction of where something should be…
and a noisy measurement of where it seems to be…
what’s the best estimate of where it actually is?

And more remarkably – it lets you answer that question over and over again, in real time.

In this episode, we explore the origins, ideas, and lasting influence of the Kalman filter with two world‑leading experts, Laureate Professor Emeritus Rob Evans and Professor Bill Moran from The University of Melbourne.

Along the way, we unpack concepts like least squares, minimum mean square error, and even dip into probability and statistics, including Bayes’ Theorem.

But don’t let that scare you off – because this is a story about powerful mathematics hiding in plain sight – and quietly shaping the technology we rely on every day.

Our host for this episode is Dr Tom Kimpson, a Postdoctoral Research Fellow with MACSYS at The University of Melbourne.

The episode webpage: https://www.therandomsample.com.au/podcast/kalman-filter/

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Scientists are generating more biological data than ever before, and new technologies now allow us to peer inside the cell in ways we couldn’t have imagined a decade ago.  But even the most advanced tools can’t explain how a living cell actually works as a complete system.

That’s the challenge at the heart of the Australian Research Council (ARC) Centre of Excellence for the Mathematical Analysis of Cellular Systems (MACSYS). The Centre brings mathematicians and computational scientists together with biologists to pursue a bold goal: building a predictive, fully computational model of a living cell.

This is the second episode of our two-part series on MACSYS.  Our guests are the leaders of MACSYS - Centre Director Professor Trevor Lithgow and Deputy Director Professor Jennifer Flegg. Together, they explore what a whole‑cell model is, why it matters, and how bridging wet‑lab and dry‑lab science is essential to tackling one of the most ambitious challenges in modern biology.

Our host for this episode is Dr Haripriya Sridharan – a Postdoctoral Research Fellow with MACSYS at The University of Melbourne.

Episode webpage: https://www.therandomsample.com.au/podcast/macsys-pt2/

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Understanding a living cell is one of the biggest challenges in modern science. Cells carry out an extraordinary number of tasks every second and understanding how all those processes fit together is central to biology.

But even with advanced experiments and mountains of data, scientists still don’t have a complete picture of what a cell does – or how it might respond to new conditions or interventions.

The ARC Centre of Excellence for the Mathematical Analysis of Cellular Systems – or MACSYS – aims to change that. MACSYS brings together mathematicians and computational scientists to work alongside biologists toward a bold goal: creating a predictive, fully computational model of a cell.

The Random Sample is excited to partner with MACSYS as our principal new partner organisation. To introduce you to the Centre’s work, we’re bringing you a two-part series. This first episode takes a mathematical lens, featuring two of the Centre’s mathematical modellers and Chief investigators: UNSW Professor Adelle Coster and QUT Professor Mat Simpson.

Together, we explore how modelling helps make sense of biological data, how collaboration across disciplines pushes science forward, and why whole‑cell modelling demands both mathematical insight and biological intuition.

Our host is Tim Macuga.

Episode webpage: https://www.therandomsample.com.au/podcast/macsys-pt1/

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Technology is transforming how we understand society. For decades, researchers relied on surveys to learn about populations. But today, data comes from everywhere - administrative records, social media, and even fitness trackers.

In this episode, we explore this shift with Professor Frauke Kreuter - a global leader in social data science. She explains how combining traditional survey methods with diverse data sources can help answer critical questions about health, education, and public policy, while also revealing the challenges of bias in digital data.

Recently, Frauke has made a bold move into artificial intelligence and large language models (LLMs). She shares why this transition matters, how AI is reshaping social research, and what the future holds for data-driven insights.

Our host is Cynthia Huang.

Episode page: https://www.therandomsample.com.au/podcast/social-data-science/

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For decades, surveys have been the backbone of official statistics - helping us measure everything from population trends to economic activity. But response rates have been falling dramatically across the world for the past few decades. This decline is forcing statistical agencies to rethink how they collect the data we all rely on.

In this episode, we explore the shift toward multi-source data with our special guest, Dr Anders Holmberg, General Manager and Chief Methodologist for the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).

What is multi-source data, how is it collected, and what are the challenges for official statistics agencies as they move to these new data sources?

Our host is Professor James Brown, Professor of Official Statistics and current head of discipline for Mathematical Sciences at the University of Technology Sydney.

Episode webpage:  https://www.therandomsample.com.au/podcast/multi-source-data-abs/

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Modern slavery is often hidden in corporate supply chains, making it hard to detect and eliminate. Countries like Australia now require companies to publish annual reports on their efforts to combat slavery - but with thousands of reports, no government can read them all.

That’s where Project AIMS comes in. Led by Adriana Bora at the QUT Centre for Data Science, Project AIMS explores how cutting-edge AI can be used to compare thousands of these reports. To push this work further, Adriana helped organise a global hackathon, bringing together teams from around the world to develop innovative solutions.

In this episode of The Random Sample, we meet Adriana and members of the winning hackathon teams – from South Africa, Cameroon, and Australia – who share how data science can make the invisible visible and why technology can play a vital role in ending modern slavery.

Our host is Tim Macuga.

Episode webpage:  https://www.therandomsample.com.au/podcast/aims-hackathon/

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We recently celebrated World Statistics Day on 20 October.

To mark the occasion, the Statistical Society teamed up with the Australian Data Science Network for a lively online panel discussion on a topic of growing importance: trust in data.

The expert panel brought together a wealth of experience from government, academia, and industry to explore the real-world challenges of building and maintaining trust in data.

Since both the Statistical Society and the Australian Data Science Network are partner organisations of The Random Sample, we’re excited to share that discussion with you here.

The discussion was moderated by Lynne Giles, an Associate Professor of Biostatistics at The University of Adelaide and President of the Statistical Society of Australia.

The panellists are:

• Dr Lucy Farrell is Director of Data Strategy in the Australian Centre for Disease Control Establishment Strategy Branch at the Australian Government Department of Health, Disability and Ageing. 
• Associate Professor Kalinda Griffiths is a Yawuru woman living and working on Larrakia Country. She is an epidemiologist and the Director of Poche SA+NT at Flinders University.
• Dr Ben Harrap is Vice President of the Statistical Society of Australia and a biostatistician who loves all things data. 
• Simon Jackman is a leading analyst of public opinion, elections and electoral systems and an Honorary Professor at the University of Sydney. 
• Dr Sue Keay is Director of the UNSW AI Institute and an expert in robotics, AI, and automation.
• Dr Aaron Snoswell is a senior research fellow in AI accountability at the QUT Generative AI Lab.

Episode webpage:  https://www.therandomsample.com.au/podcast/data-we-can-trust/

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Coral reefs are among the most diverse and valuable ecosystems on Earth – but they’re also among the most vulnerable.

Thanks to climate change, pollution, and other human impacts – coral reefs are in crisis.  The need for fast, coordinated action has never been greater.

One of the biggest challenges is getting accurate, up-to-date data, especially from remote or isolated reef systems. Without that data, it’s hard to know where the damage is happening, how fast it’s progressing, or what actions might help.

That’s where ReefCloud comes in. ReefCloud is a digital platform that brings together the world’s coral reef monitoring community. It combines artificial intelligence, statistical analysis, and data visualisation to help scientists and decision makers to understand reef changes and respond to them faster and more effectively.

In this episode, we talk to Dr Manuel Gonzalez-Rivero, a Research Team Leader with the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS). He also leads ReefCloud.

Our host is Dr Julie Vercelloni, a research scientist at AIMS.

• Episode webpage:  https://www.therandomsample.com.au/podcast/reefcloud/ 

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The art of engagement for the Australian Bureau of Statistics 

How do you make statistics and complex data not just understandable - but engaging?

For the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), the answer is simple: meet people where they are - on social media.

From pop culture and sports to quirky factoids, the ABS social media team uses fun, relatable content to build a massive following. How massive? We’re talking hundreds of thousands of followers across multiple platforms.

Once they’ve got your attention, they make sure the important ABS material is right there in the mix - explained clearly and accessibly.

In this episode, we speak with Heather Lansdowne, the leader of the ABS social media team, about how they’re changing the way people connect with statistics.

Our host is Tim Macuga.

Episode webpage: https://www.therandomsample.com.au/podcast/abs-social-media/ 

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