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Dr. Jared Hayes serves as Head of Transformation and Improvement in the Operations Group within the Office of the Chief Operating Officer at the University of Otago. He holds a PhD in Information Sciences from the University of Otago, where his doctoral research examined control centre dispatch profiles for St. John's Ambulance Service, Southern Region. With over ten years of experience in the higher education sector, Hayes has held various operational, strategic planning, and project management roles at the University of Otago. His career trajectory includes research positions in the Department of Information Science, contributing to studies on human-computer interaction and decision-making in high-pressure environments. Currently, he leads the Transformation and Improvement Division, which develops robust business cases for investment decisions, designs user-friendly services, optimizes core processes through continuous improvement and automation, and delivers enterprise-wide strategic programmes. The division emphasizes innovation, change management, and value measurement to enhance organizational excellence for work and study at the University.
Hayes' academic contributions center on emergency services command and control, particularly ambulance dispatch interfaces and dispatcher decision strategies. Key publications include 'Ambulance Dispatch Complexity and Dispatcher Decision Strategies: Implications for Interface Design' (2004, with Antoni Moore and George Benwell), 'Information layering to de-clutter displays for emergency ambulance dispatch' (2006), 'Lines vs. no lines: do lines connecting related information improve performance on ambulance dispatch tasks?' (2003, with Samuel Moyle, Antoni Moore, and B.L. William Wong), 'Cartographic and Cognitive Perspectives on Ambulance Dispatch Displays' (2013 chapter), 'Hayes Moore Wong ECCE13 final' (2013), and 'What Makes Emergency Ambulance Command and Control Complex?'. Earlier work includes the working paper 'St John's Ambulance Service, Southern Region - Control centre dispatch profile (1997–2001)' (2002). These publications, affiliated with the Department of Information Science, explore complexity factors, visualisation techniques, and interface designs for emergency response, garnering 29 citations on ResearchGate. In recent leadership roles, Hayes has acted as Chief Operating Officer, overseen the 2024 GHG Emission Report, coordinated staff redeployment efforts during challenges, and advanced the e-rescue initiative, promoting sustainable device refurbishment, student access to technology, and community partnerships aligned with the University's Pae Tata strategic plan and Ti Kōuka Sustainability Framework.
