Dr Francis Gacenga
| Name | Dr Francis Gacenga |
|---|---|
| Email Address | francis.gacenga@unisq.edu.au |
| Job Title | Senior Digital Research Advisor |
| Qualifications | BA(Hons) Kenyatta, GDipMIS Greenwich, MBA Nairobi, PhD USQ |
| Department | Research Infrastructure Admin |
| Office of Research | |
| Affiliations | Centre for Sustainable Agricultural Systems |
| ORCID | https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3021-1012 |
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Biography
Dr Francis Gacenga is an Information Systems Researcher and Research Infrastructure Manager with two decades of national and international experience leading IT teams and projects. Francis has worked in a variety of academic roles as a Senior Lecturer, Lecturer, Examiner, Principal Investigator, and Research Investigator. He has worked in industry as an IT Service Manager, Systems Analyst, Systems Administrator, Programmer and Trainer. He is an experienced digital research infrastructure and services manager, research data management expert and the senior digital research advisor at University of Southern Queensland (UniSQ). Francis has led successful research infrastructure and Services refresh projects for UniSQ valued at over $1.8 Million implementing data collection, processing, storage and management infrastructure and services. He has undertaken funded research projects as principal investigator and co-investigator in Information Systems and in Applied Information Systems in Physical and Social Sciences. In 2021 Francis was one of the six editors of the ARDC funded Institutional Underpinnings project that developed Australia’s first National Research Data Management Framework. He has published journals, conference articles, datasets, books, book chapters, seminars and workshops in academic and practitioner outlets on the subjects of IT Service Management, Design Science, FAIR data implementation, reproducible research and data management. He is a Senior Member of the Australian Computer Society and previously chaired the ACS Toowoomba Chapter. Francis is an active member of the research data management community and regularly participates and presents at the ARDC sponsored Research Data Management Planning Interest Group, ARDC’s Skills Development Summit and Australasian Research Management Society (ARMS). Francis has developed and delivered research training on making research data FAIR and Research Data Management offered at UniSQ and across Queensland universities. He serves on UniSQ’s Cybersecurity Committee and is UniSQ’s representative on the AgReFed Technical Committee. Francis is a certified Software Carpentry Instructor and has contributed to the development of Carpentries training materials and organised and delivered numerous workshops.
Employment
| Position | Organisation | From | To |
|---|---|---|---|
| Senior Digital Research Advisor | University of Southern Queensland | 2014 |
Expertise
Digital Research Infrastructure, Information Systems Design, IT Service Management, Research Data Management, Design Science
Fields of Research
- 460104. Applications in physical sciences
- 460105. Applications in social sciences and education
- 460905. Information systems development methodologies and practice
- 460908. Information systems organisation and management
Professional Membership
| Professional Membership | Year |
|---|---|
| Australian Computer Society |
BA(Hons)
Kenyatta
1997
GDipMIS
Greenwich
2003
MBA
Nairobi
2000
PhD
USQ
2013
Current Supervisions
| Research Title | Supervisor Type | Level of Study | Commenced |
|---|---|---|---|
| Resilience to seasonal variation and drought of grain farms by AgTwin Technology | Associate Supervisor | Doctoral | 2025 |
| Project title | Details | Year |
|---|---|---|
| A systematic approach to investing in quantum computing information systems | Early Career Researcher (ECR) - Grant value - $10,000. Role: Principal Investigator. The project specifically addressed an identified challenge by researching strategies for successful investment in near-term quantum computing information systems. The project will therefore provide evidence-based guidance as to quantum computing investment strategies to achieve risk-adjusted excess returns for benchmarked investments in so-called Noisy Intermediate Scale Quantum Information Systems. | 2024 |
| Knowledge-guided machine-learning optimisation of soil constraint management | Soils Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) 2023/4_3.006 Granted $40,000. Role: Co-Investigator. Knowledge-guided machine-learning optimisation of soil constraint management where he is responsible for implementing FAIR aligned project research data management. | 2023 |
| AgReFed Platform Project | ARDC funded $431,137. Granted $153,000. Role: UniSQ Project Lead. AgReFed enables researchers to search and discover trusted, reusable agriculture-related datasets, workflows and models. This will facilitate data reuse and cross-discipline collaborations for novel research insights and practical applications in policy, reporting and on-ground decision making. | 2023 |
| An evaluation of the effectiveness of adoption and implementation of FAIR | Grant valued - $44,000. Role - Prinicpal Investigator. The research project aimed to contribute to an understanding of the opportunities and challenges that face researchers and research institutions as they attempt to adopt and adapt FAIR (Finable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable) data management principles in research. | 2021 |
| Australian Academy of Science (AAS) 2019 Theo Murphy Initiative Grant | Grant value - $12,000. Role Organising Committee Member and Presenter. Developed and delivered a national workshop on reproducible research to build the research data management capacity of Early and Mid-Career (EMCR) researchers. | 2019 |