Data Science & Artificial Intelligence

Data Science and Artificial Intelligence (DSAI) are at the forefront of a technological revolution that is transforming industries, reshaping research, and influencing all aspects of modern life—from science and engineering to the arts and society at large. 

At RMIT, the DSAI discipline is the largest within the School of Computing Technologies. Our strength lies in the breadth and depth of our expertise across the full spectrum of AI technologies. We are uniquely positioned to integrate diverse approaches to artificial intelligence and data science, enabling groundbreaking research, innovation, and real-world impact. 

Our Core Focus Areas 

The discipline is built around four core research pillars: 

• AI in Health 
• Multi-modal Machine Learning 
• Responsible AI 
• Intelligent Decision Making 

AI in Health 

RMIT is leading innovation in AI for health and medical applications. Our research spans a range of areas, including: 

• Natural Language Processing (NLP): Using NLP to detect health deterioration in aged care and extract key insights from patents and scientific publications. 
• Bioinformatics: Identifying novel biomarkers and predictors through machine learning and data-driven discovery. 
• Digital Health: Developing tools that improve the delivery and understanding of healthcare and aged care services. 

Multi-modal Machine Learning 

Multi-modal machine learning enables systems to learn from and make sense of diverse data types—text, images, audio, and social networks. Our expertise includes: 

• Natural Language Processing: Longstanding research in NLP with specialisations in digital health, misinformation detection, and knowledge extraction. 
• Computer Vision: Novel applications of image and video analysis to engineering and scientific domains. 
• Graph Analysis: Unlocking insights from structured data such as social or knowledge graphs. 
• Conversational AI: Analysing audio patterns and conversations to infer emotions and information seeking needs.  Pioneering conversational AI systems that engage with users in natural ways. 
• Generative AI: Automatically discovering new patterns from multiple modalities to solve downstream problems in health, planning.  Automatically fine tuning Large Language Models and its architecture for self-supervised learning.

Responsible AI 

Ethics and fairness are at the heart of our Responsible AI research. We focus on building AI systems that are transparent, equitable, and human-centric. Key areas include: 

• Bias Mitigation: Designing fair and balanced decision-making systems. 
• Explainable AI: Creating interpretable models that provide meaningful explanations of their outcomes. 
• Privacy Focused: Innovative approaches in preserving privacy while maintaining predictive performance. 
• Anomaly and Misinformation Detection: Identifying irregularities in health data, detecting fraud, and recognising misinformation in media. 
• Causal Inference: Uncovering causal relationships and better understand the reasoning behind AI decisions from logs and data. 
• Recommender Systems: Integrating behavioural science and AI to deliver highly personalised and fair recommendations. 

Intelligent Decision Making 

AI-driven decision making is central to solving real-world problems. At RMIT, we’ve developed powerful techniques to support efficient and effective decision-making, including: 

• Optimisation Techniques: Pioneering research in Bayesian optimisation, multi-objective optimisation, and data-driven decision systems. 
• Agentic AI: Combining human and machine intelligence to enhance performance and reduce cognitive fatigue.  We have developed large scale simulations to better understand micro and macro behaviours in bush fire evaluations. 
• Real-World Applications: Our work supports smarter systems in transport planning, energy generation, and operational management. 

Industry and Government Partnerships 

RMIT’s DSAI researchers have a strong track record of impactful collaborations with industry and government. Our partners include the Australian Government, Lenovo, Telstra, Microsoft, and more. 

We bring together deep technical knowledge and practical experience to deliver both cutting-edge prototypes and deployed systems. Our focus is on developing transformative technologies that offer real social and economic benefits. 

Connect With Us 

Whether you're passionate about pursuing a PhD in AI and data science, or you're seeking an innovative research partner in industry or government, we’d love to hear from you. Get in touch to explore how we can work together to shape the future of AI.