Rhema Vaithianathan

Rhema Vaithianathan is a Professor of Health Economics and Director of the Centre for Social Data Analytics (CSDA), a translational research centre located in the School of Social Sciences and Public Policy, in the Faculty of Culture and Society, at the Auckland University of Technology (AUT), New Zealand.

Rhema is recognised internationally for her work using data science for social good, and the implementation of machine learning tools in high stakes government systems such as child protection. She leads the international research team that developed, and continues to refine, two active child protection predictive risk modelling tools: the Allegheny Family Screening Tool (Allegheny County, PA, USA) and the Douglas County Decision Aid (Douglas County, CO, USA). Additionally, she has developed a tool to assess homelessness in Allegheny County, aiding in prioritizing bed allocation within temporary housing.

Rhema is currently leading the development of several new machine learning tools that will help Australian and US jurisdictions better address challenges they face in domains including health, education, housing, elder abuse, and child protection.

Rhema has held research positions in Australia, Singapore and the United States, including a Harkness Fellowship at Harvard University. She gained her PhD from the University of Auckland (NZ) in 2000.