Keynote Speakers

Janette Hamilton-Pearce is a descendent of the Te Whānau a Apanui iwi of Aotearoa New Zealand. Dr Hamilton-Pearce specialises in supporting Indigenous communities in managing intellectual and cultural property rights and data within information systems by ‘Tagging the World with Traditional Knowledge (TK) and Biocultural (BC) Labels’ at Local Contexts.

She is the Chief of Staff at Local Contexts with over 28 years experience as an academic in information systems for Indigenous communities. She obtained her Doctor of Philosophy in 2009 from the School of Computing and Mathematical Sciences, Auckland University of Technology (AUT).

We’re excited to welcome Janette as a distinguished keynote speaker at this year’s conference!

Giuseppe Barca specialises in interdisciplinary research at the intersection of high-performance computing (HPC), artificial intelligence (AI), and digital chemistry at the University of Melbourne, Australia.

He has led collaborations with top universities, supercomputing centres, and companies across Australia and the US. From 2018 to 2023, he directed Australia’s involvement in the US Department of Energy’s Exascale Computing Project (ECP) for GAMESS, creating advanced computational chemistry software for systems like Frontier and Aurora. He also led Australia’s Pawsey Centre for Extreme-scale Readiness (PaCER) project, boosting capabilities in molecular modelling.

His research advances digital technologies with HPC and machine learning to accelerate chemical research, enabling high-speed, precise predictions in molecular systems. His group’s AI-powered software aids in designing new therapeutics, catalysts, and materials for academia and industry. From 2020 to 2022, his team set four world records in quantum chemical modelling, utilising over 27,000 GPUs on Summit and 37,000 GPUs on Frontier.  In 2023, he co-founded QDX Technologies, a deep-tech company focused on drug discovery via quantum chemistry and AI, operating in Singapore, Melbourne, and Canberra. 

In December 2024, Giuseppe and his research team were awarded the ACM Gordon Bell Prize in HPC, and earlier this year Giuseppe was recognised as one of Australia’s Top 250 Researchers for his impactful, highly cited work.

We’re excited to welcome Giuseppe as a distinguished keynote speaker at this year’s conference!

Professor Amanda Barnard is one of Australia’s most acclaimed computational scientists, renowned for her expertise at the intersection of computational modeling, high-performance computing, and applied machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI). She holds a BSc (Hons) in Applied Physics (2000), a PhD in Theoretical Condensed Matter Physics (2003), and a DSc (2020) from RMIT University.

Following her studies, Amanda held distinguished international fellowships, including a Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Center for Nanoscale Materials at Argonne National Laboratory (USA, 2003–2005) and as the Violette & Samuel Glasstone Fellow at the University of Oxford (UK), alongside an Extraordinary Research Fellowship at The Queen’s College (2005–2008). Upon returning to Australia, she served as an ARC QEII Fellow, Office of the Chief Executive (OCE) Science Leader, and later Chief Research Scientist in Data61 at CSIRO (2009–2020).

In 2020, Amanda joined the Australian National University, where she is now a Senior Professor and Deputy Director of the School of Computing. With over two decades of experience in high-performance computing, computational modeling, and informatics, she serves on multiple institutional boards and has earned 11 national and international awards spanning five scientific disciplines. She is also a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Physics, the Royal Society of Chemistry and the Australian Computer Society. In recognition of her contributions to science and education, Amanda was made a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) in 2022.

We’re excited to welcome Amanda as a distinguished keynote speaker at this year’s conference!