We kicked off 2023 with a bang, hosting the DARE Symposium in February at The University of Sydney.

The first cohort of our talented PhD candidates presented a 10-minute thesis on their research. This group, including Emma Nguyen, Linduni Rodrigo, Maryam Zeinolabedini, Megan Nguyen, Rajitha Athukorala and Paco Tseng, commenced their candidature in January 2020 and have 18 months remaining. They all did an excellent job in summarising two years of research in a 10-minute presentation.

The keynote presentation, featuring DARE CI Professor David Warton, educated us on the importance of minding your Ps (properties) and Qs (research question) when analysing data, such as when monitoring the effects of ecological restoration efforts; automatically detecting and classifying wildlife from underwater videos and camera traps; and mapping species as a function of their environment in a changing climate.

We were also delighted to have two of DARE’s valuable partner organisations present – Mr Mike Day from the NSW Department of Planning and Environment (DPE) and Dr Andrew McPherson from Geoscience Australia (GA).

Mike, who leads the Spatial Insights team of NSW DPE’s Science Division, focused on simplicity for better decisions, including discussion on the Department’s new Trees Near Me app, as well as thermal drone imagery being used for the NSW Koala Strategy.

Andrew is a senior geoscientist at GA with 18 years’ experience and he discussed how his team works with uncertainty in (hydro)geophysical investigations, particularly in the Upper Darling Floodplain Project in western NSW.

We finished off the day with an intriguing panel discussion on the opportunities and challenges of applying Data Science to natural resources, featuring Dr Clara Grazian and Professor David Warton from DARE, as well as our guest speakers, Mr Mike Day and Dr Andrew McPherson.