Rate My Professor Peter Summons

Dr Peter Summons is an Honorary Senior Lecturer in the School of Computer and Information Sciences (Information Technology) within the College of Engineering, Science and Environment at the University of Newcastle, Australia. He holds a PhD and Master of Computing from the University of Newcastle, a Bachelor of Engineering (Computer) from the same institution, and a Graduate Diploma in Education from Newcastle College of Advanced Education. Over more than three decades at the University, he has held positions including Senior Lecturer, Head of the IT discipline group managing nine full-time staff, and Program Convenor for the Master of Information Technology, Bachelor of Information Science, Bachelor of Information Science (Honours), and Bachelor of Information Technology (Honours). His early career included Systems Engineer in the Hardware Development Group at BHP Newcastle (1981-1985) and Consultant Engineer at TUNRA Bulk Solids (2001-2009). He has provided consulting services in analysis and programming to organizations such as the Hunter Area Pathology Service and Catholic Schools Office, and taught part-time in TAFE on courses including Post Trade Electronics, Engineering Drawing for mining, and computer literacy.

Summons' research centers on information and knowledge-based systems for business, information systems education, and decision support systems in medicine and health, with emphasis on health informatics, clinical guidelines interpretation, and tacit knowledge elicitation in pain management. Key publications include "Deep Ensemble Learning for the Automatic Detection of Pneumoconiosis in Coal Worker’s Chest X-ray Radiography" (2022), "Detection and Visualisation of Pneumoconiosis Using an Ensemble of Multi-Dimensional Deep Features Learned from Chest X-rays" (2022), "Computer-Aided Diagnosis of Coal Workers' Pneumoconiosis in Chest X-ray Radiographs Using Machine Learning: A Systematic Literature Review" (2022), and "Disjunction, tension and dissonance within nursing pain care provision for the older hospitalized person" (2021). He served as principal investigator for three teaching grants, including a $50,000 national competitive CUTSD Grant (1998), and contributed to 17 grants totaling $262,871. Summons has supervised six higher degree research students to completion, examined NSW Higher School Certificate Computing Studies (1998-2000), chaired conference committees, edited proceedings, and is on the TEQSA Register of Experts since 2013. A member of the Australian Computer Society since 1990, his publications have over 570 citations.