Named one of Australia’s Top 10 Data Scientists in 2023, Dr Yalchin Oytam led the COVID-19 modelling which guided the Premier and Cabinet’s effective management of the epidemic in NSW. This work included economic modelling in collaboration with Treasury and other government departments.
Yalchin is renowned for his ground-breaking work in health analytics. He delivers major gains in health outcomes and operational efficiency by combining creativity and large datasets from multiple sources, engaging with a wide range of clinical stakeholders, and applying cutting-edge techniques in data science, statistical & machine learning, and engineering.
His recent work includes:
- Evaluation and optimisation of NSW Integrated and Preventative Health initiatives
- Measurement of the impact of primary care on hospital avoidance
- Analysis of the impact of NDIS on tertiary health service utilisation
- Individual-level predictors of hospitalisation risk (implemented across NSW Health) which factor in clinical and socioeconomic data.
Yalchin’s work in AI at Australia’s national science agency, CSIRO, resulted in an R package which is now used internationally in the field of genomics.
An effective communicator (despite being a data scientist!), Yalchin regularly speaks at conferences in the fields of health, science, business and public policy. He represented CSIRO at Science Meets Parliament.
Yalchin holds a PhD in Neuroengineering from UNSW, with training and experience in modelling and analysing complex systems. He has publications in systems and control engineering, experimental psychology, genomics and health informatics, as well as philosophy of science and poetry.