Professor David Lovell is the Head of QUT’s School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS).

David became Head of School in December 2014 to provide leadership, support, energy and enthusiasm to EECS in all facets of the School’s research, teaching and engagement.

David graduated from the University of Queensland’s Department of Electrical Engineering in 1989 (BEng Computer Systems, Hons I) and received his PhD there in 1994 for research into artificial neural network methods for handwritten character recognition.

He completed postdoctoral research in perinatal risk prediction at Cambridge University before joining CSIRO Mathematical and Information Sciences (CMIS) in 1998. At CSIRO, David was involved in a wide range of research and consulting  in the analysis of large and complex datasets, worked as Executive  Officer to the CEO from  2001-02, and was a member of CSIRO’s Corporate  IT Management team from 2002-04.

From 2004, David worked  in research management within the quantitative biosciences domain, leading CMIS’ Statistical Bioinformatics-Agribusiness Group (2004-07), then its Bio Research Program (2007-08), until mid-2008 appointment as Bioinformatics and Analytics Leader for CSIRO’s Transformational Biology initiative.

In mid-2012, and in tandem with his role at CSIRO, David was appointed Director of the Australian Bioinformatics Network, an initiative of CSIRO, EMBL Australia and Bioplatforms Australia which has helped strengthen the Australian bioinformatics community and been instrumental in the formation of ABACBS, the Australian Bioinformatics And Computational Biology Society, of which he is Secretary.

David is a research manager and academic convinced that the most challenging and rewarding aspect of collaborative research lies in the people involved. He is committed to creative thinking, delivering benefits from R&D, fostering effective working relationships, and communicating clearly.