Professor Janet Wiles
Professor

Janet Wiles

Email: 
Phone: 
+61 7 336 52902

Background

Janet Wiles is a Professor in Human Centred Computing at the University of Queensland.

Her multidisciplinary team co-designs language technologies to support people living with dementia and their carers and social robots for applications in health, education, and neuroscience. She is currently developing a citizen science project which uses insights from neuroscience, AI and language technologies to explore the electrical characteristics of mycelial networks of symbiotic fungi in local ecosystems. She received her PhD in computer science from the University of Sydney and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in psychology. She has 30 years’ experience in research and teaching in machine learning, artificial intelligence, bio-inspired computation, complex systems, visualisation, language technologies and social robotics, leading teams that span engineering, humanities, social sciences and neuroscience. She currently teaches research methods for thesis and masters students, and is developing a new course in human-centred AI. Previous special interest courses include a cross disciplinary course ”Voyages in Language Technologies” that introduced computing students to the diversity of Indigenous and non-Indigenous languages, and state-of-the-art tools for deep learning and other analysis techniques for working with language data.

Featured projects

Availability

Professor Janet Wiles is:
Available for supervision
Media expert

Fields of research

Human-centred computing Information and Computing Sciences Machine learning Neural networks

Qualifications

  • Doctor of Philosophy, University of Sydney

Search Professor Janet Wiles’s works on UQ eSpace

226 works between 1990 and 2025
All (226) Book (3) Journal Article (94) Other Outputs (5) Edited Outputs (2) Conference Publication (111) Book Chapter (11)

21 - 40 of 226 works

2022

Journal Article

Estimating sentence-like structure in synthetic languages using information topology

Back, Andrew D. and Wiles, Janet (2022). Estimating sentence-like structure in synthetic languages using information topology. Entropy, 24 (7) 859, 1-25. doi: 10.3390/e24070859

Estimating sentence-like structure in synthetic languages using information topology

2022

Journal Article

Personal and complex: The needs and experiences related to technology use for people living with dementia

Liddle, Jacki, Worthy, Peter, Frost, Dennis, Taylor, Eileen, Taylor, Dubhglas, Beleno, Ron, Angus, Daniel, Wiles, Janet, Angwin, Anthony and The Florence Project Living Experience Expert Reference Group (2022). Personal and complex: The needs and experiences related to technology use for people living with dementia. Dementia, 21 (5), 1-21. doi: 10.1177/14713012221084521

Personal and complex: The needs and experiences related to technology use for people living with dementia

2022

Journal Article

An information theoretic approach to symbolic learning in synthetic languages

Back, Andrew D. and Wiles, Janet (2022). An information theoretic approach to symbolic learning in synthetic languages. Entropy, 24 (2) 259, 259. doi: 10.3390/e24020259

An information theoretic approach to symbolic learning in synthetic languages

2022

Journal Article

Group? What group? A computational model of the group needs a psychology of “us” (not “them”)

Wiles, Janet, Haslam, S. Alexander, Steffens, Niklas K. and Jetten, Jolanda (2022). Group? What group? A computational model of the group needs a psychology of “us” (not “them”). Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 45 e125, 53-54. doi: 10.1017/s0140525x21001266

Group? What group? A computational model of the group needs a psychology of “us” (not “them”)

2022

Conference Publication

A systematic study reveals unexpected interactions in pre-trained neural machine translation

Richardson, Ashleigh and Wiles, Janet (2022). A systematic study reveals unexpected interactions in pre-trained neural machine translation. 13th International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), Marseille, France, 20-25 June 2022. Paris, France: European Language Resources Association (ELRA).

A systematic study reveals unexpected interactions in pre-trained neural machine translation

2021

Journal Article

Convergent cross sorting for estimating dynamic coupling

Breston, Leo, Leonardis, Eric J., Quinn, Laleh K., Tolston, Michael, Wiles, Janet and Chiba, Andrea A. (2021). Convergent cross sorting for estimating dynamic coupling. Scientific Reports, 11 (1) 20374, 20374. doi: 10.1038/s41598-021-98864-2

Convergent cross sorting for estimating dynamic coupling

2021

Journal Article

Entropy estimation using a linguistic Zipf–Mandelbrot–Li model for natural sequences

Back, Andrew D. and Wiles, Janet (2021). Entropy estimation using a linguistic Zipf–Mandelbrot–Li model for natural sequences. Entropy, 23 (9) 1100, 1100. doi: 10.3390/e23091100

Entropy estimation using a linguistic Zipf–Mandelbrot–Li model for natural sequences

2021

Other Outputs

Visualising AI #3 – Rockatoo National Science Week STEM event

Wiles, Janet, Zdenek, Christina, De Nagy Koves Hrabar, Catherine, Muhlberger, Ralf and Thomas, Shelley (2021). Visualising AI #3 – Rockatoo National Science Week STEM event. Westfield Garden City, Brisbane, Australia: The University of Queensland; The Queensland AI Hub; Audacious.

Visualising AI #3 – Rockatoo National Science Week STEM event

2021

Journal Article

The early ontogeny of infants’ imitation of on screen humans and robots

Sommer, Kristyn, Redshaw, Jonathan, Slaughter, Virginia, Wiles, Janet and Nielsen, Mark (2021). The early ontogeny of infants’ imitation of on screen humans and robots. Infant Behavior and Development, 64 101614, 1-11. doi: 10.1016/j.infbeh.2021.101614

The early ontogeny of infants’ imitation of on screen humans and robots

2021

Conference Publication

Conduction delay plasticity can robustly learn spatiotemporal patterns embedded in noise

Arnold, Joshua, Stratton, Peter and Wiles, Janet (2021). Conduction delay plasticity can robustly learn spatiotemporal patterns embedded in noise. 2021 International Joint Conference on Neural Networks (IJCNN), Shenzhen, China, 18-22 July 2021. Piscataway, NJ, United States: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. doi: 10.1109/IJCNN52387.2021.9533934

Conduction delay plasticity can robustly learn spatiotemporal patterns embedded in noise

2021

Other Outputs

Visualising AI #1 - Rockatoo Mural for 2021 Brisbane Street Art Festival

Wiles, Janet, Nagy, Scott, Krimsone and De Nagy Koves Hrabar, Catherine (2021). Visualising AI #1 - Rockatoo Mural for 2021 Brisbane Street Art Festival. Brisbane, Australia: Brisbane Street Art Festival; The Queensland AI Hub; The University of Queensland.

Visualising AI #1 - Rockatoo Mural for 2021 Brisbane Street Art Festival

2021

Journal Article

Can a robot teach me that? Children's ability to imitate robots

Sommer, Kristyn, Slaughter, Virginia, Wiles, Janet, Owen, Kathryn, Chiba, Andrea A., Forster, Deborah, Malmir, Mohsen and Nielsen, Mark (2021). Can a robot teach me that? Children's ability to imitate robots. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 203 105040, 105040. doi: 10.1016/j.jecp.2020.105040

Can a robot teach me that? Children's ability to imitate robots

2021

Conference Publication

User-friendly automatic transcription of low-resource languages: plugging ESPnet into Elpis

Adams, Oliver, Galliot, Benjamin, Wisniewski, Guillaume, Lambourne, Nicholas, Foley, Ben, Sanders-Dwyer, Rahasya, Wiles, Janet, Michaud, Alexis, Guillaume, Séverine, Besacier, Laurent, Cox, Christopher, Aplonova, Katya, Jacques, Guillaume and Hill, Nathan (2021). User-friendly automatic transcription of low-resource languages: plugging ESPnet into Elpis. 4th Workshop on the Use of Computational Methods in the Study of Endangered Languages, Online, 2-3 March 2021. Stroudsburg, PA USA: Association for Computational Linguistics.

User-friendly automatic transcription of low-resource languages: plugging ESPnet into Elpis

2021

Conference Publication

Single neurons with delay-based learning can generalise between time-warped patterns

Arnold, Joshua, Stratton, Peter and Wiles, Janet (2021). Single neurons with delay-based learning can generalise between time-warped patterns. International Conference on Artificial Neural Networks, Bratislava, Slovakia, 14-17 September 2021. Cham, Switzerland: Springer International Publishing. doi: 10.1007/978-3-030-86380-7_11

Single neurons with delay-based learning can generalise between time-warped patterns

2020

Journal Article

“Building the threads of connection that we already have”: The nature of connections via technology for older people

Liddle, Jacki, Stuart, Avelie, Worthy, Peter, Levine, Mark, Kastelle, Tim, Wiles, Janet, Pachana, Nancy A. and Clare, Linda (2020). “Building the threads of connection that we already have”: The nature of connections via technology for older people. Clinical Gerontologist, 44 (4), 1-12. doi: 10.1080/07317115.2020.1852638

“Building the threads of connection that we already have”: The nature of connections via technology for older people

2020

Journal Article

Preschool children overimitate robots, but do so less than they overimitate humans

Sommer, Kristyn, Davidson, Rebecca, Armitage, Kristy L., Slaughter, Virginia, Wiles, Janet and Nielsen, Mark (2020). Preschool children overimitate robots, but do so less than they overimitate humans. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 191 104702, 104702. doi: 10.1016/j.jecp.2019.104702

Preschool children overimitate robots, but do so less than they overimitate humans

2020

Journal Article

An automated approach to examining pausing in the speech of people with dementia

Sluis, Rachel A., Angus, Daniel, Wiles, Janet, Back, Andrew, Gibson, Tingting Amy, Liddle, Jacki, Worthy, Peter, Copland, David and Angwin, Anthony J. (2020). An automated approach to examining pausing in the speech of people with dementia. American Journal of Alzheimer's Disease and Other Dementias, 35, 1-8. doi: 10.1177/1533317520939773

An automated approach to examining pausing in the speech of people with dementia

2020

Conference Publication

A plan for developing an Auslan communication technologies pipeline

Korte, Jessica, Bender, Axel, Gallasch, Guy, Wiles, Janet and Back, Andrew (2020). A plan for developing an Auslan communication technologies pipeline. ECCV 2020: Computer Vision – ECCV 2020 Workshops, Glasgow, Scotland, 23–28 August, 2020. Cham, Switzerland: Springer International Publishing. doi: 10.1007/978-3-030-66096-3_19

A plan for developing an Auslan communication technologies pipeline

2019

Journal Article

The challenges of designing a robot for a satisfaction survey: surveying humans using a social robot

Heath, Scott, Liddle, Jacki and Wiles, Janet (2019). The challenges of designing a robot for a satisfaction survey: surveying humans using a social robot. International Journal of Social Robotics, 12 (2), 519-533. doi: 10.1007/s12369-019-00604-0

The challenges of designing a robot for a satisfaction survey: surveying humans using a social robot

2019

Journal Article

Transitive entropy - a rank ordered approach for natural sequences

Back, Andrew D., Angus, Daniel and Wiles, Janet (2019). Transitive entropy - a rank ordered approach for natural sequences. IEEE Journal on Selected Topics in Signal Processing, 14 (2) 8826273, 312-321. doi: 10.1109/JSTSP.2019.2939998

Transitive entropy - a rank ordered approach for natural sequences

Current funding

  • 2023 - 2025
    Bridging the Digital Divide: Building Health Self-Efficacy through Communication-Accessible Online Environments
    NHMRC MRFF PPHR - Consumer Led Research
    Open grant

Past funding

  • 2022 - 2024
    AI and automation in language technologies: securing Queensland's data sovereignty
    Trusted Autonomous Systems Defence Cooperative Research Centre
    Open grant
  • 2021 - 2024
    Measuring, Monitoring, and Motivating Adherence to Self-Managed Aphasia Treatment
    NHMRC MRFF - Cardiovascular Health Mission
    Open grant
  • 2018 - 2021
    Opie: Indigenous Language Robots for community-led revitalisation
    Department Communication & the Arts
    Open grant
  • 2017 - 2019
    Discovering patterns in human-robot interaction: new tools for complex adaptive social systems
    Commonwealth Defence Science and Technology Group
    Open grant
  • 2017 - 2018
    Discovering patterns in human-robot interaction: New tools for complex adaptive social systems
    United States Asian Office of Aerospace Research and Development
    Open grant
  • 2016 - 2019
    Lexical splits: a novel perspective on the structure of words (Arts & Humanities Research Council Grant administered by Uni of Surrey)
    University of Surrey
    Open grant
  • 2016 - 2019
    Behavioral, Physiological, and Quantitative Models of Pro-Social Behavior (NIH grant administered by the University of California San Diego)
    University of California, San Diego
    Open grant
  • 2016 - 2018
    Bio-Inspired Peripersonal Space Sensors for Social Interaction
    United States Asian Office of Aerospace Research and Development
    Open grant
  • 2015 - 2018
    Evaluating recurrence as a measure of change in interpersonal dynamics
    ARC Discovery Projects
    Open grant
  • 2014 - 2017
    Human-robot interactions: Social micro-abilities to establish and manage social exchange
    United States Asian Office of Aerospace Research and Development
    Open grant
  • 2014 - 2022
    ARC Centre of Excellence for the Dynamics of Language (ANU lead institution)
    Australian National University
    Open grant
  • 2014 - 2017
    Brain Eager: Socially Situated Neuroscience: Creating a suite of tools for studying sociality and interoception
    University of California, San Diego
    Open grant
  • 2013 - 2016
    The Development of Automated Advanced Data Analysis Techniques for the Detection of Aberrant Patterns of Prescribing Controlled Drugs
    ARC Linkage Projects
    Open grant
  • 2012 - 2015
    Bio-inspired computation: Clock-free, grid-free, scale-free, and symbol-free
    United States Air Force Office of Scientific Research
    Open grant
  • 2012 - 2015
    Situation Tracking in Large Data Streams
    United States Asian Office of Aerospace Research and Development
    Open grant
  • 2011 - 2014
    A systems biology approach to elucidate common principles and menchanisms underlying triplet repeat expansion associated genetic defects (NHMRC project adminsitered by Monash University)
    Monash University
    Open grant
  • 2011 - 2017
    iRat: A rat-sized rodent for bridging from neural systems to behavioural neuroscience
    University of California, San Diego
    Open grant
  • 2011 - 2013
    Data Mining Applications in the Regulation of Prescription Opioids
    Queensland Health
    Open grant
  • 2011 - 2012
    Interneurons as clock-free regulators of neural information transfer
    University of California, San Diego
    Open grant
  • 2011
    A systems biology approach to elucidate common principles and mechanisms underlying triplet repeat expansion associated genetic defects
    NHMRC Project Grant
    Open grant
  • 2010 - 2012
    Understanding Patient Flow Bottlenecks and Patterns from Hospital Information Systems Data
    UQ Collaboration and Industry Engagement Fund
    Open grant
  • 2010 - 2011
    Talking with Robots:Evolving Grounded Language for Embodied Agents ( ARC Discovery Project administered by QUT)
    Queensland University of Technology
    Open grant
  • 2009
    Talking with Robots: Evolving Grounded Language for Embodied Agents
    ARC Discovery Projects
    Open grant
  • 2008 - 2009
    Structure-Function relationships in stroke data
    Washington University in St Louis
    Open grant
  • 2008 - 2011
    Detecting and Understanding Dysfunctional Anomalies in Queensland Healthcare Databases
    ARC Linkage Projects
    Open grant
  • 2007 - 2011
    How does the birth of new neurons (on shorter time scales) represent episodes at longer time scales from behavioural, neural and modelling perspectives
    University of California, San Diego
    Open grant
  • 2007 - 2008
    Exploring the behavioural consequences of neurogenesis in dentate gyrus
    University of California at San Diego - The Kavli Institute for Brain and Mind
    Open grant
  • 2006 - 2011
    Thinking Systems: Navigating Through Real and Conceptual Spaces
    ARC Special Initiative
    Open grant
  • 2005 - 2006
    The Application of Machine Learning Techniques in Predicting Medical Outcomes
    UQ FirstLink Scheme
    Open grant
  • 2005 - 2007
    Enhancing Intelligent Robot Navigation with the Evolution of a Robot-Friendly Language
    ARC Discovery Projects
    Open grant
  • 2003 - 2008
    ARC Centre for Complex Systems
    ARC Centres of Excellence
    Open grant
  • 2003
    Computational Modeling of RNA Control Networks
    ARC Discovery Projects
    Open grant
  • 2002
    Evaluating connectionist models of normal and impaired semantic memory
    University of Queensland Research Development Grants Scheme
    Open grant
  • 2001
    To attend Complex Systems Summer School & collaborate with colleagues at the Santa Fe Institute Faculty
    UQ Travel Grants Scheme
    Open grant
  • 1999
    A connectionist simulation of the stroop effect in alzheimer's dementia
    ARC Australian Research Council (Small grants)
    Open grant
  • 1998 - 2000
    Evaluating learning in recurrent neural networks: unifying and extending models of linguistic processes
    ARC Australian Research Council (Large grants)
    Open grant
  • 1997
    Development and evaluation of computational primitives in artificial neural network modelling
    ARC Australian Research Council (Large grants)
    Open grant
  • 1995 - 1997
    Development and evaluation of computational primitives in artificial neural network modeling
    ARC Australian Research Council (Large grants)
    Open grant

Availability

Professor Janet Wiles is:
Available for supervision

Looking for a supervisor? Read our advice on how to choose a supervisor.

Supervision history

Current supervision

  • Doctor Philosophy

    Adapting Spoken Language Modeling for Data-Resource Constrained Languages

    Principal Advisor

    Other advisors: Dr Marie Boden

  • Doctor Philosophy

    The storyteller social robot

    Principal Advisor

    Other advisors: Dr Marie Boden

Completed supervision

Enquiries

Contact Professor Janet Wiles directly for media enquiries about:

  • Cognitive science
  • Complex systems
  • Computational modelling
  • Human memory
  • Intelligent systems
  • Memory
  • Science - cognitive

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