Ms Mary Barnes

Ms Mary Barnes: applying statistical expertise to environmental and agricultural problems

Ms Mary Barnes is a research statistician who has worked on projects ranging from import risk assessment to consumer values analysis.

• 29 April 2011 | Updated 14 October 2011

Overview

• Current activities
• Background
• Academic qualifications
• Achievements

Current activities

Ms Mary Barnes has over 15 years experience as a statistical consultant.

She is currently working on the Grape and Wine Research and Development Corporation Soil/Water Initiative. Her support to this initiative includes:

• experimental design
• data analysis
• fostering data sharing and collaboration across the participating institutions
• ensuring statistically sound approaches are used.

Background

Initially a metallurgist, Ms Barnes studied statistics and became one of the pioneering quality management leaders at BHP. She now has over 15 years experience as a statistical consultant.

Ms Barnes has been involved in many projects at CSIRO, particularly in ecological and environmental health.

Her work has included:

• ecological risk assessment for terrestrial ecosystems
• analysing what consumers value regarding water supply disruptions
• developing a measure of Arsenicosis in Bangladesh
• statistical analyses for the Australian Safety and Efficacy Register of New Interventional Procedures Surgical.

In one recent project, she modelled the risk of disease transfer to and from Australia via imported and exported goods such as pig meat, bananas and hay. This award winning work has helped shape the Australian method for Import Risk Assessment.

In another recent project, Ms Barnes recently developed a predictive model for surgeons to use to when assessing patients who have abdominal aortic aneurysms. The model allows surgeons to enter patient characteristics and predict the operations success, likelihood of re-intervention and expected survival rates.

Academic qualifications

Ms Barnes has been awarded a:

• Bachelor of Applied Science (Metallurgy) with Honours from The University of NSW, Sydney, NSW, Australia
• Graduate Diploma in Maths from the University of Wollongong, NSW.

Ms Barnes is an Accredited Statistician.

Achievements

Ms Barnes' professional memberships include:

• Statistical Society of Australia (Accredited Statistician and SA auditor)
• SETAC (Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry)
• Association of Statistics Specialists Using Microsoft Excel (ASSUME).

Find out more about CSIRO’s work in Bioinformatics.