Answering the Regulator’s Prayer –
What can we learn about the real world from experimenting with artificial societies?
Research Seminar | Assoc. Professor Jason Thompson
The University of Melbourne
Date: Tuesday 21 May
Workshop: 10-11.30am
Location: QUT Gardens Point
Event Details
Speaker Details
Jason Thompson
Policymakers and operators of some of Australia’s largest health and social systems increasingly looked to data and technology to help them understand and overcome complex crises. But where could they turn when a crisis was either novel or the data didn’t exist? In this seminar, Assoc. Professor Thompson detailed recent and current work on the development of agent-based models and applied computational social science in transport, public health, and large-scale injury rehabilitation systems. He provided examples from case studies that helped system operators make better use of the data they had available, leading to improved decision-making processes. This seminar aimed to equip attendees with insights and methodologies for leveraging existing data and technology to address and manage unprecedented challenges effectively.
Jason Thompson is an Associate Professor at Phoenix - The Australian Centre for Posttraumatic Mental Health, within the Faculty of Psychiatry at the University of Melbourne. Until recently, he was Co-Director of the Transport, Health and Urban Systems (THUS) Research Laboratory at the Melbourne School of Design. A/Prof Thompson is a computational social scientist, focusing on translating research into practice across post-injury rehabilitation, compensation systems, and health system design. He is a former Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Award (DECRA) Fellow and a current ARC Future Fellow. Additionally, he serves as a Chief Investigator at the NHMRC Centre of Excellence in Compensable Injury after Road Crashes. His epidemiological modeling in 2020 significantly contributed to the Victorian Government’s strategy for exiting its second wave of COVID-19 infections.