Longbing Cao

Professor Longbing Cao is the Distinguished Chair in Artificial Intelligence, Director of the Frontier AI Research Centre, and an ARC Future Fellow (Level 3) at Macquarie University. Previously, he was the Founding Director of the UTS Advanced Analytics Institute and held a full professorship at UTS since 2009. He holds dual PhDs in Artificial Intelligence and Computing Science, an MSc in Communication, and a Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering.

A pioneering researcher in AI, data science, and advanced analytics, Prof Cao's work spans foundational and innovative approaches to data science and analytics, AI and intelligent systems, humanoid AI, pattern recognition, machine learning (from shallow to deep), behavior informatics, social computing, alongside applied statistics. Since 2005, he has authored more than 400 publications, including numerous sole- and first-authored monographs and journal articles.

His leadership in research and its demonstrated socio-economic impact have earned him multiple recognitions, including an individual Eureka Prize, the title of ACM Distinguished Scientist, and feature mentions in media coverage, government reports, and OECD whitepaper.

As the Founding Director of the UTS Advanced Analytics Institute—the first data science research initiative in Australia—Prof Cao has been a long-time advocate for advancing data science and analytics across academia and industry. He initiated globally unique academic programs, including the Master of Analytics (Research) and the PhD Thesis in Analytics. In 2009, he launched Australia's first annual Big Data Summit, which has served as a vital forum for connecting researchers, industry leaders, and government stakeholders.

With prior experience as a Chief Technology Officer (CTO), Prof Cao has been at the forefront of enterprise innovation, focusing on developing actionable and impactful AI and data science solutions. His research has contributed to solving real-world problems, enhancing business productivity, and delivering measurable socio-economic benefits across sectors such as government services, finance, insurance, telecommunications, transport, and e-commerce—both in Australia and internationally.

Prof Cao served as General Chair of KDD 2015, the first edition of the prestigious international conference held in Australia. He has initiated several influential efforts in data science and analytics, including the IEEE International Conference on Data Science and Advanced Analytics (DSAA), the IEEE Task Force on Data Science and Advanced Analytics, the IEEE Task Force on Behavioural, Economic, and Socio-cultural Computing (BESC), and the ACM SIGKDD Chapter for Australia and New Zealand.

He is/was the Founding Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Data Science and Analytics (Springer-Nature), Series Editor of the Springer Book Series on Data Analytics, and has held editorial leadership roles as Associate Editor-in-Chief and Editor-in-Chief of IEEE Intelligent Systems, the flagship AI magazine of the IEEE. He also serves as the Steering Committee Chair for major conferences including PAKDD and DSAA.

AI and intelligent systems (humanoid robots) 

Applied statistics and modeling

Behavior, business, and social informatics

Data science and analytics

Shallow to deep machine learning

Enterprise innovation and application

With the CTO experience, Prof Cao committed to enterprise innovation and applications involving domains including public sector/services, capital markets, banking, insurance, health, telcom, e-commerce, transport, smart cities, and education, etc. Prof Cao intensively collaborated with various large private and public organizations, such as Australian Taxation Office, Australian Department of Human Services/Centrelink, Australian Department of Immigration and Border Protection, IP Australia, Commonwealth Bank Australia, Westpac, AMP, IAG, HCF, SAS, Microsoft, Shanghai Stock Exchange, etc. 

Prof Cao initiated and chaired various ACM and IEEE chapters and task forces, served as editor-in-chiefs and associated editors of major journals and magazines, chaired major conferences including KDD. He is the Steering Committee Chair of PAKDD and IEEE DSAA.