The Western Australian Branch of the Statistical Society of Australia invites you to join them as the four panellists share their experiences with statistical consulting in industry, government, and academic settings. The four panellists are Dr Ritu Gupta, Rebecca Herbst, Alex Stuckey, and Dr Robin van de Meeberg. Dr John Henstridge will moderate the evening, with questions fielded from the floor.
Date: Tuesday 10 November 2026
Time: 6:00 pm - 7:00 pm AWST
Venue: Geographe Room, Ground Floor, State Library of Western Australia, Perth Cultural Centre, 25 Francis Street, Perth
Format: In person
This event is kindly sponsored by Data Analysis Australia (DAA).
Presenter Bios:
Dr Ritu Gupta
Ritu is an academic statistician with over 25 years of teaching and consulting experience. She is an Associate Professor at Curtin University and previously worked at the Statistical Consulting Centre at the University of Western. Ritu has taught a broad range of theoretical and applied topics to diverse cohorts across Actuarial Science, Health, Science, and Engineering programs. She also serves as the Data Science Coordinator at Curtin University. She has completed over 30 consulting projects, providing practical solutions to challenging problems for industry, government and sporting clubs. She is an Accredited Statistician (AStat) with the Statistical Society of Australia.
Rebecca Herbst
Rebecca Herbst is a Senior Consultant Statistician at Data Analysis Australia. Rebecca holds a Master of Science (Applied Statistics) from Swinburne University of Technology and a Graduate Diploma in Epidemiology (Clinical) from The University of Queensland. She has previously worked as a medical research scientist where she developed an interest in statistics. Since completing post-graduate degrees in applied statistics and clinical epidemiology, she has worked as a consultant across a variety of areas including mine safety, transport, education, agriculture and financial services.
Alex Stuckey
Alex is a Principal Consultant Statistician and Managing Director at Data Analysis Australia. Alex is an Accredited Statistician with over 20 years of experience in applying a diverse range of design, analytical and computational methods to real world problems. His fields of expertise include sample survey design and analysis, time series analysis, forecasting, official statistics and automation to inform expert systems.
Alex has formerly led teams within the Australian Bureau of Statistics responsible for supporting national economic and social statistics. Following his career in official statistics, Alex ran a statistical consulting firm supporting clients in government, industry and academia.
Dr Robin van de Meeberg
Robin is a biostatistician at The Kids Research Institute Australia, bringing across the analytical and computational skills developed as an extragalactic astrophysicist to the challenges of child health research. As a consultant statistician, he collaborates closely with clinicians, researchers and health services to design studies, manage and analyse complex datasets and turn research findings into evidence towards meaningfully improving child health outcomes. To this end, he has dedicated time and energy to developing software packages that streamline the production of scientific tables, figures and analytical workflows. Whether observing cosmic structures of the Universe or the intricacies of the human body, Robin has always been motivated by a common goal: using data to better understand the world and communicate scientific research in a meaningful and impactful way.
Dr John Henstridge (Moderator)
John Henstridge is the Chief Consultant Statistician at Data Analysis Australia and one of Australia’s most eminent Statisticians. In a career spanning 40 years, he has been recognised as a national leader in developing solutions to real world data problems, through modern technology and innovative statistics.
John’s particular strength is in quickly understanding complex systems, envisioning the approach to a solution and providing strategic and actionable advice. John is highly experienced in delivering results across a plethora of industries including government, commercial and legal. John has held the position of National President with the Statistical Society of Australia and is a Fellow and Chartered Statistician with the Royal Statistical Society in the United Kingdom.
Refreshments and Dinner
Members, visitors, and guests are invited to mingle over light refreshments from 5:45 PM. Following the meeting, everyone is invited to dine with the panellists and fellow attendees at a nearby restaurant.
Venue details
This meeting is in the Geographe Room on the Ground Floor of the State Library of Western Australia. The library is in the Perth Cultural Centre just north of Perth Train Station. Google map
The area has numerous parking options, including on-street parking and parking beneath the library at the CPP State Library, accessed from 15 Francis Street, Northbridge. An alternative car park is the CPP Cultural Centre, with an entrance at 2 Roe Street, Northbridge.
Due to construction work as part of the Perth Cultural Centre Rejuvenation Project, we recommend entering via the Francis Street Entrance or taking the lift from the underground car park.
From the Francis Street Entrance, walk a short distance into the library before turning right down the ground floor gallery away from the cafe.
For further information please contact the WA Branch Secretary: wa.branch@statsoc.org.au
@StatSocAus
