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Professor Didar Zowghi is Senior Principal Research Scientist at CSIRO’s Data61 (Australia’s National Science Agency’s data and digital specialist arm). She leads the science team in: “Diversity and Inclusion in Artificial Intelligence” and “Requirements Engineering for Responsible AI”. In 2022, She was awarded Emeritus Professor at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) and Conjoint Professor at the University of New South Wales (UNSW).
During her tenure of 22 years at UTS, she held many leadership positions: Deputy Dean of Graduate Research School, Director of research Centre for Human-Centred Technology Design, Director of Requirements Engineering Research Lab, Director of Women in Engineering and IT, Department Head of Software Engineering, and Associate Dean/Research in Faculty of Information Technology. Before joining academia, she worked in the software industry in the UK and Australia as a software engineer, analyst, consultant, and project manager.
In 2022, she pioneered new research at CSIRO’s Data61, focusing on: 1) exploring the challenges and opportunities of Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) in achieving Responsible AI, by developing guidelines for operationalising D&I in the design, development and deployment of AI; 2) adapting requirements engineering knowledge and practices for achieving D&I in AI.
Her 20+ years of academic research were focused on improving the software development processes and its products. In particular, her research addressed issues in the communication-rich, multidisciplinary activities of software development, referred to as Requirements Engineering. She is an expert in the “Evidence-based” and “Human-Centred Design” research. She has supervised many research students in Sydney and internationally. Much of her research was funded by the Australian government agencies and Research Council.
She has served on the program committee of many conferences, including the IEEE International Conference on Requirements Engineering since 1998. She was its General Chair in 2010, Program Chair in 2015 and Steering Committee Chair (2016-18). She received the Lifetime Service Award in 2019 from the IEEE for her leadership in the Requirements Engineering research community. She is Associate Editor of the IEEE Software and Requirements Engineering Journal. In 2022, she received the IEEE Computer Society Distinguished Educator award.
She has published over 250 research articles in prestigious conferences and journals and co-authored papers with over 140 scholars from 40+ countries. She has delivered numerous keynotes, industry seminars on software engineering, Responsible AI , and Diversity & Inclusion in AI.
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