Svetha Venkatesh is one of the top 15 women in the world in Artificial Intelligence.[1] She is Indian/Australian and is an Alfred Deakin Professor in the Faculty of Science, Engineering & Built Environments,[2] in the Department of Pattern Recognition and Data Analytics at Deakin University, as well as a professor of computer science and director of the Centre for Pattern Recognition and Data Analytics (PRaDA) at Deakin. She was elected a Fellow of the International Association of Pattern Recognition in 2004 for her contributions to the "formulation and extraction of semantics in multimedia data".[3] She was also elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering in 2006[4] and an ARC Laureate Fellow in June 2017.[5] She was elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science in May 2021.[6]
Venkatesh has developed new technologies in large-scale pattern recognition in big data.[7] Her work has led to start-ups such as iCetana which finds anomalies through video analytics to detect potential security threats in large data sets; the development of a health analytics program which enables doctors to predict suicide risk;[8] and PRaDA's development of the Toby Playpad app which provides therapy for children with autism.[9] [10] Her work on using surveillance data led to the development of a "virtual observer" which was used after the 2005 London bombings.[11]
Based on gender diversity analysis of 1.5m research papers, Venkatesh is one of the top 15 women in the world contributing to artificial intelligence research.[12] She is based in Geelong, Victoria.
Venkatesh delivered the 2015 Harrison Lecture for Innovation.[13] In addition to her research, in 2015 she founded SPARK Deakin - Deakin University's flagship entrepreneurship program.
Venkatesh's son, Akshay, a mathematician specialising in number theory and related topics,[14] was one of the four Fields Medal winners in 2018.[15]