Coordinators

James Bristow

James is a data scientist who specialises in Bayesian inference, machine learning, and semi-mechanistic modelling. He currently works part-time at PFR, primarily working with the crop modelling team using simulation platforms such as Agricultural Production Systems sIMulator (APSIM) and Growth Grammar-related Interactive Modelling Platform (GroIMP). James is also completing a PhD in statistical epidemiology at Massey University, focusing on the application of spatiotemporal modelling to Salmonella case counts within New Zealand, alongside animal influenza sequence data as part of an international collaboration with Cornell University. He completed his Master’s degree on Bayesian age and growth modelling of chondrichthyans with National Institute of Water and Atmospheric research (NIWA) as supported by a Fisheries New Zealand scholarship.

Hana Liang

Hana is a data scientist based in Auckland. Since joining PFR, she has been working on various projects, focusing on sensor data ingestion and visualisation, model calibration, workflow orchestration, and pipeline implementation and deployment. She is also involved in computer vision projects, including deep learning–based image analysis. Hana has a bachelor’s degree from the University of Auckland majoring in Data Science and is currently studying a Master’s in Data Science part-time.

Ting-Hsuan Chen

Ting-Hsuan is a molecular biologist turned computational biologist in the Bioinformatics Analysis Team at PFR Group. Her research focuses on transposable elements and epigenetics, particularly their roles in genome evolution and stress response, and encompasses both scientific discovery and tool development.

Jingjing Zhang

Jingjing is a data scientist and a quantitative ecologist specialising in using both statistical and simulation modelling tools to study the patterns of time-series and/or spatial data in ecology. Prior to joining PFR, Jingjing worked as a lecturer at the Auckland University of Technology. She completed Ph.D. at the University of Auckland, and afterwards worked as a quantitative Postdoc Research Fellow within NIWA. Her research interests are quantitative ecological modelling, the development of virtual ecology and its software tools.

Chris Van Houtte

Chris is a data scientist from Lower Hutt. Prior to joining PFR, he was an earth scientist at GNS Science, and also a data scientist in the primary healthcare sector. He has just over 10 years of research experience across a range of different project types, but particularly in probabilistic decision making, forecasting and signal processing. Most recently he developed a regionalised COVID-19 forecasting model that was used for situational awareness and resource management in New Zealand’s recent wave of diagnosed cases. He has skills in python, R and SQL, and is a big fan of the probabilistic language Stan. Outside of work, most of his time currently is spent on DIY projects, having (almost) finished building a new backyard greenhouse, and spending time with his young family.