Dr Richard Jarrett.

Dr Richard Jarrett: helping decision-makers understand risk

Dr Richard Jarrett heads a team of researchers who develop new ways of measuring and understanding risk.

20 April 2011 | Updated 6 March 2012

Current activities
Background
Academic qualifications
Achievements

Current activities

Richard Jarrett has been a research statistician with CSIRO Mathematics, Informatics and Statistics since 2000.

Until he retired in early 2009, he was Program Leader for Computational and Mathematical Modelling and headed research in Quantitative Risk Management.

Prior to this, he was Professor of Statistics at the University of Adelaide (1991-99) and Director of the Statistical Consulting Centre at the University of Melbourne (1987-90).

Dr Jarrett has returned to CSIRO post-retirement and is now working part-time.

Risks are often described in a qualitative way – high, medium, or low risk. But these assessments are often subjective and difficult to integrate with other risks.

Dr Jarrett’s team is finding ways to make risk assessments more quantitative, to better suit decision-making processes in industry, science and government.

Applications are broad but include:

financial risk modelling
risk assessment processes that lead to the allocation of resources
environmental risk assessments
climate forecasts
threats from exotic pests and diseases.

He has published over 60 scientific papers and produced more than 300 technical or client reports.

Background

Dr Jarrett’s career in statistics spans several decades.

After an initial period with CSIRO, he became:

Reader in the Department of Statistics and Director of the Statistical Consulting Centre at the University of Melbourne, 1987-90
Professor of Statistics at the University of Adelaide, 1991-99.

Since rejoining CSIRO in 2000, he has held a number of posts including leading research teams in production process improvement, reliability and asset management and, more recently, in quantitative risk.

Academic qualifications

Dr Jarrett has been awarded a:

Bachelor of Science with First Class Honours from the University of Adelaide in 1968
Doctor of Philosophy in Theoretical Statistics, from the Imperial College, University of London in the United Kingdom in 1973
Graduate Diploma in Organisational Behaviour, from Swinburne Institute of Technology, Victoria, Australia, in 1990.

Achievements

Dr Jarrett is:

a Fellow of the International Statistical Institute
an Accredited Statistician
a referee for a wide variety of international and national journals
a reviewer for the Australian Research Council.

Other achievements include:

was the Knibbs lecturer, Statistical Society of Australia, Canberra in 2006
received a CSIRO Medal for Research Achievement in 2004
was Chair, Accreditation Committee, Statistical Society of Australia, 2002-03
was a Member, Inaugural Accreditation Committee, Statistical Society of Australia, 1997-2003
was made an Honorary Life Member, Statistical Society of Australia in 2000
was awarded a UK Royal Society/Australian Academy of Science Fellowship 1985.