Rate My Professor Hanna Suominen

Professor Hanna Suominen is a Professor of Computer Science in the Australian National University School of Computing. She holds an MSc in Applied Mathematics from the University of Turku, Finland in 2005, a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Turku in 2009, a Docent (adjunct professor) qualification in Computer Science from the University of Turku in 2013, a Master of Leadership in Curriculum and Pedagogy from Monash University in 2020, and Senior Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy from the Australian National University in 2019. Possessing over 20 years of experience at the interface between technology, education, and health sciences, Professor Suominen is dedicated to accelerating health impact from personalised precision medicine technology through advanced data analytics and machine learning. In her current roles, she serves as Associate Director (Neuroinformatics) of the ANU John Eccles Institute of Neuroscience and as Co-chair and Executive Leader (Computing and Engineering) of the ANU Grand Challenge program Our Health in Our Hands. Previously, she was the inaugural Associate Director (Engagement and Impact) of the ANU School of Computing, Leader of the Theory and Applications in Multimodal Pattern Analysis team at Data61 of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, and Leader of the Natural Language Processing team at National Information and Communications Technology Australia.

Professor Suominen's research specializations encompass machine learning and natural language processing applications to health, including methods for detecting Parkinsonian biomarkers from human voice data imperceptible to neurologists, development of smart sports-sensors employed by the Australian Institute of Sport and Turku University Hospital, and co-invention of the PostAc job search-engine. She co-chaired the eHealth evaluation lab of the Conference and Labs of the Evaluation Forum from 2012 to 2021 and collaborates with industry partners such as Konan Medical and Lightcast to translate research into products. With over 200 publications accumulating approximately 3,200 citations, her contributions have secured more than $33 million in competitive funding since 2018. Notable awards and honors include the Best Reviewer Award for the Resources and Evaluation track at the 2023 Conference on Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing, MS Australia 50 Years President’s Medal in 2023, Outstanding Paper (Demo) Award at the 60th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics in 2022 for 'Automatic gloss dictionary for sign language learners,' James McLeod Advanced Trainee Award (Poster) at the 2022 Annual Scientific Meeting of the Australian and New Zealand Association of Neurologists, Prof Jan EW Beneken Prize at the 2019 Conference on Applied Modeling in Acute Care, and ANU Teaching Award for Document Analysis in 2012, among about 20 such recognitions for academic and research excellence since 2006.