Rate My Professor Nic Geard

Professor Nic Geard is a Professor in the School of Computing and Information Systems in the Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology at the University of Melbourne, where he joined in 2016. He serves as Director of the Melbourne Data Analytics Platform and leads the Artificial Intelligence research group. Previously, he was an Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA) Fellow from 2013 to 2016 at the Centre for Epidemiology and Biostatistics in the Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, developing computational models of infectious disease transmission. Before moving to Melbourne, Geard worked with Seth Bullock in the School of Electronics and Computer Science at the University of Southampton, focusing on the dynamics of social networks. He earned his BSc and PhD in computer science from the School of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering at the University of Queensland, with his PhD research on modelling the evolution of gene regulatory networks supervised by Janet Wiles.

Geard's research specializes in agent-based modelling and computational simulations to investigate infectious disease dynamics and control, including influenza, group A Streptococcus, and COVID-19, accounting for demographic, behavioral, and pathogen heterogeneity. His broader interests encompass simulation models of complex biological, social, and artificial systems, with prior work on gene regulatory networks, developmental and evolutionary processes, and co-evolution in dynamic networks. Notable publications include "Implications of asymptomatic carriers for infectious disease transmission and control" (Chisholm et al., 2018, Royal Society Open Science), "Synthetic population dynamics: a model of household demography" (Geard et al., 2013, Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation), "Optimal timing of influenza vaccine during pregnancy: A systematic review and meta-analysis" (Cuningham et al., 2019, Influenza and Other Respiratory Viruses), "The effects of demographic change on disease transmission and vaccine impact in a household structured population" (Geard et al., 2015, Epidemics), and "Risk mapping for COVID-19 outbreaks in Australia using mobility data" (Zachreson et al., 2021, Journal of The Royal Society Interface). He received the ARC DECRA Fellowship and FEIT Excellence Awards in Interdisciplinary Research.