Profile

Dr Andrew Reeson is a principal research scientist in CSIRO’s Data61. His work combines behavioural economics with econometric modelling to address issues of national significance to Australia. After a mis-spent youth taking biology at Oxford he switched to economics in order to focus on the more challenging aspects of real-world problems. On joining CSIRO in 2004 he worked on the design and implementation of environmental policy tools. This included applying economic experiments to inform the design of the Emissions Reduction Fund and advising on major water programs.

In 2013 has switched his focus to the digital economy, including economic mechanisms for equitable data sharing, the impact of technology on employment markets at national (e.g. Tomorrow’s Digitally Enabled Workforce) and regional (Growing Opportunities in the Fraser Coast: Informing Regional Workforce Development) levels, and potential policy responses (e.g. The VET Era: Equipping Australia’s Workforce for the Future Digital Economy). Other projects include large scale randomised controlled trials of behavioural economics insights (with over 160,000 participants in total), a paper modelling the impacts of information technology on Australian businesses and a high-profile analysis of superannuation drawdown behaviour.

He now leads Data61’s Humans & Machines research group, which applies computational social sciences to understand, and guide, the rapidly evolving relationships between humans (at the individual, organisational and societal level) and (digital) machines. It also develops technology which enables machines to draw insights from human language. A particular focus is developing the science required for effective collaboration between human and artificial intelligence (AI) through CSIRO’s CINTEL Future Science Platform.