MENTEE – Samantha Papavasiliou

Samantha Papavasiliou received her Bachelors of Psychological Science (2014) and Bachelors of Social Science with Honours (2015), at the University of Adelaide. In 2017, Samantha completed her Master of Project Management Project Systems, and in 2018 her Master of International Trade and Development, also from the University of Adelaide. She is currently working towards her Doctorate of Philosophy at the University of Adelaide, in an industry partnership with the Australian Taxation Office (ATO).

Samantha currently works at the ATO as a Data Scientist focusing on real-time analytics, machine learning techniques and behavioural analytics.

Her key field of research is in understanding digital adoption behaviours in the Australian Public Sector (APS), based on an ATO case study. A behavioural analysis was used to understand whether individuals are able to adopt APS digital services, with a focus on non-digital lodgers. The aim of the research is to determine which characteristics make up the non-digital population and to understand why they are not lodging digitally. A quasi randomised control trial was conducted as part of this research, which is informing the prediction of the different parts of the population, to identify areas that can be targeted most effectively. The research is aimed at informing and tailoring communication channels used by the APS moving forward.

Samantha’s areas of interest are in behavioural analytics in public sector digital adoption and the application of predictive modelling to tailor communications between organisations and users.

Recently, Samantha’s research on understanding Modern Customer Engagement in the public sector was presented at the Chief Data Analytics Officer conference in Canberra, Australia (May 2019) and the IARIA Digital World Conference Series in Athens, Greece (February 2019).