Adjunct Professor
Kate Devitt
Faculty of Engineering,
School of Electrical Engineering & Robotics
Biography
Dr S. Kate Devitt is Adjunct Professor QUT Centre for Robotics and is an accomplished and internationally recognised thought leader, researcher, agile project manager and speaker regarding ethical robotics, autonomous systems, and artificial Intelligence (RAS-AI) in both civilian and military domains. Kate is passionate about operationalising responsible AI, optimising human-machine teams, evidence-based participatory democracy, collective intelligence, applied epistemology.She is CEO and Co-Founder of BetterBeliefs a Bayesian stakeholder engagement platform for evidence-based, actionable, and justified decision-making (https://betterbeliefs.com.au) and Director of Augmented Decisions, helping organisations deliver fast responsible AI using parallel agile development. She is a Fellow of the Australian Security Leaders Climate Group (ASLCG) and the Institute for Integrated Economic Research, on NATO’s Data and AI Review Board Subgroup A and a member of NATO S&T HFM-322: Meaningful Human Control of AI-based Systems.
Kate holds a BA(Hons) First Class with majors in the History and Philosophy of Science and Psychology from the University of Melbourne (2000) where she specialised in the philosophy of statistics, philosophy of science, decision-making, rationality and philosophy of psychology. She holds a PhD in philosophy and Graduate Certificate in cognitive science from Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, where she graduated with specialisations in epistemology, cognitive science and applied ethics (2013). Kate’s academic background includes lecturing and tutoring in philosophy, cognitive science, information science, science communication, and applied ethics at Rutgers University, University of Queensland (UQ) and Queensland University of Technology (QUT).
2020-2023 Kate was Chief Scientist of Trusted Autonomous Systems Defence CRC where she led the 'trust' activities including ethics, law and assurance including development of the Robotics and Autonomous Systems Gateway (RAS-Gateway), an open access digital hub providing resources and tools to support the Australian autonomous systems ecosystem in navigating regulatory frameworks with greater certainty and efficiency (https://rasgateway.com.au). 2018-2021 Kate was a Social and Ethical Robotics Researcher for Defence Science and Technology Group (DSTG) and was a finalist for the Early Career Award 2020.
2017-2018 she was a Research Fellow in the Institute for Future Environments, Law and Mathematics and Statistics. 2013-2014 she was a QUT Transformational Teaching Fellow. 2012 she was Project Manager on the AIRS Redevelopment Project (2012). 2009-2015 she was Academic Skills Adviser @ QUT Library winning three Vice Chancellor's Performance Awards for contributions in eLearning resources, project management and academic skills integration with faculty (CI).
Kate has run her own online media company (Whole Media) and created Australia's top environmental podcast in 2007, A Climate Affair. The podcast brought a philosophical, editorial dialogue to environmental issues. The podcast was featured on iTunes and was one of Australia’s top news podcasts generating investment from Australian Green Pages and Jack Green Energy. Kate has also worked as a project administrator and technical writer for Accenture on the Department of Defence CAMM2 Project 2001-2002.
Kate's is a '100 Brilliant Women AI Ethics 2023' and '50 Women in Robotics You Need to Know About 2021'. Kate Devitt stands as a distinguished figure in the field of ethical AI and autonomous systems with a wealth of knowledge and experience and inspires others to engage in thought-provoking discussions on the future of technology and its ethical implications
Personal details
Positions
- Adjunct Professor
Faculty of Engineering,
School of Electrical Engineering & Robotics
Keywords
cognitive science, law, decision science, rationality, epistemology, philosophy, ethics, autonomous systems, artificial intelligence, robotics
Research field
Cognitive Science, Philosophy
Field of Research code, Australian and New Zealand Standard Research Classification (ANZSRC), 2008
Qualifications
- PhD (Rutgers)
Professional memberships and associations
- Australasian Association of Philosophy (AAP)
- Australasian Society for Cognitive Science (ASCS)
- American Philosophical Association (APA)
- Society for Philosophy and Psychology (SSP)
- Society for Judgment and Decision Making (SJDM)
- The Association for Information Science and Technology (ASIS&T)
- Society for the Philosophy of Information (SPI)
- Cognitive Science Society (CSS)
- Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness (ASSC)
Experience
As Chief Scientist of Trusted Autonomous Systems Cooperative Research Centre (2020-2023) Kate worked with industry, government, Defence and academia to build trusted accelerated sovereign capability in robotics, autonomous systems and artificial intelligence. At QUT 2017-2018 she built a strategic decision making platform for Expedia Global. The project built a social and evidence-based platform that incorporates Bayesian rationality and statistics to reduce cognitive and motivational biases and improve evidence-based evaluation of strategic business hypotheses. She was project lead to develop a cognitive decision interface to optimise integrated weed management. Weed management is becoming more complicated with the rise of herbicide resistant weeds that threaten farming sustainability. Our team designed an interactive tool for cotton growers that allows them to explore the impact of individual priorities and strategy preferences (optimistic, pessimistic and risk calculated) on weed management decisions given uncertainty in temperature and rainfall. Kate was a postdoctoral researcher in cognitive decision science for a Cotton Research Development Corporation (CRDC) Agri-Intelligence in Cotton Production Systems Project (2017-2018). Agri-intelligence in cotton production systems took the first steps to the integration of deep agricultural knowledge, knowledge across the value chain and systems science with powerful digital technologies to help farming enterprises make the best use of agronomic, environmental and economic data to enhance decision-making and management practices leading to more efficient, profitable and sustainable operations. Kate contributed expertise in cognitive science to maximise the usability and adoption of apps created by agricultural start up The Yield Horticulture Innovation Australia project VG15054: Data Analytics for App Technology in Irrigation Decisions.
Publications
Research outputs by year
QUT ePrints
For more publications by Kate, explore their research in QUT ePrints (our digital repository).
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