AI Student Advisory Board

Jonty is an Industrial Design Honours student in his final year at RMIT, and recently studied AI programming on exchange in South Korea. He joined the AI Student Advisory Board because he believes designers and engineers bring different ways of thinking to emerging technologies, and AI needs both. His thesis asks what the future workplace might look like if designed from a neurodivergent perspective, and what performance might mean when difference is supported rather than corrected. Jonty learns through making. He is interested in turning speculative ideas into believable, tangible propositions, particularly through products and interactive systems. He would rather prototype an unlikely idea and learn from it than leave it as a “what if”.

Connor is a PhD candidate at RMIT researching emotionally based school avoidance, or EBSA, and the complex ways young people, families, schools, and systems respond when attending school becomes difficult. Their research spans intervention literature, population-level longitudinal data, education system indicators, and online discourse. They're also a provisional psychologist working with children and young people in primary schools, and a sessional academic at RMIT and the Cairnmillar Institute. Connor has previously worked across hospitality, broadcast captioning, and public service OH&S roles, and is particularly interested in how technologies like generative AI can be used purposefully to support learning, accessibility, and wellbeing.

Samuel is an AI engineer, applied researcher, and solutions consultant bridging AI research, agentic systems design, and real-world adoption. With foundational training in Aerospace Engineering and Data Science from RMIT, his expertise spans enterprise cloud data platforms, agentic AI architectures, and responsible AI development. As the founder of aifor.au and a doctoral researcher supported by CSIRO’s Next Generation Graduates Program, Samuel designs secure, human-in-the-loop decision-support systems and delivers practical AI capability training. On the AI Student Advisory Board, he champions forward-looking applications, sovereign AI capability, and ethical transparent technology integration.

Steven is a Bachelor of Business student at RMIT, majoring in Strategy & Innovation and Global Business. Much of his work outside the classroom centres on amplifying the student voice in RMIT's institutional decision-making, whether that's on the AI Student Advisory Board, in student experience and consultative committees, or through the new initiatives he has helped create and shape for the College of Business and Law. As the Student Leader Coordinator for the Student Staff Consultative Committee, he's particularly focused on improving how student feedback on courses is captured and acted on. He's also drawn to community-facing work, currently interning across the not-for-profit and small business sectors.

Aditi is a Master of Social Work student at RMIT with a background in law and a longstanding interest in advocacy, ethics, and social justice. Her curiosity about AI stems from its growing influence on how we learn, think, research, and make decisions. As a member of the AI Student Advisory Board, she is particularly interested in exploring the intersection of AI and education, including its potential to enhance learning, accessibility, and creativity. At the same time, Aditi is equally curious about the risks AI may pose to human cognition, critical thinking, and wellbeing, and how we can navigate these opportunities and challenges responsibly.