Dana Michalski

Dana Michalski

School of Psychology

Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences

Eligible to supervise Masters and PhD (as Co-Supervisor) - email supervisor to discuss availability.


My main interest is applied research involving facial comparisons by humans and automated systems. This includes facial recognition, facial identification, and facial matching. I am also interested in evaluating and developing biometric technologies that can aid in the identification of children as well as those for disaster victim identification purposes. I also conduct and lead a team specialising in test, evaluation, validation, and verification (TEVV) of AI systems. 

More broadly, I am interested in human-AI teaming, AI/ML, TEVV, human identification, and human factors.

My main interest is applied research involving facial comparisons by humans and automated systems. This includes facial recognition, facial identification, and facial matching.  I am also interested in evaluating and developing biometric technologies that can aid in the identification of children as well as those for disaster victim identification purposes. 

More broadly, I am interested in forensic comparison sciences, human identification, human factors, forensic psychology, and machine learning.

  • Appointments

    Date Position Institution name
    2022 - ongoing Discipline Leader AI Systems Effectiveness Defence Science and Technology Group
    2021 - 2021 a/Discipline Leader Video & Image Analytics Defence Science and Technology Group
    2020 - 2020 a/Discipline Leader Biometrics Defence Science Technology Group
    2017 - ongoing Senior Adjunct Lecturer University of Adelaide
    2017 - 2020 Science Team Lead Biometrics Defence Science and Technology Group
    2011 - 2017 Research Scientist, Biometrics Defence Science and Technology Group
  • Awards and Achievements

    Date Type Title Institution Name Country Amount
    2022 Award DSTG Award for Outstanding Contribution to Collaborative Partnerships Defence Science and Technology Group Australia -
    2019 Award International Women in Biometrics Award Security Industry Association United States -
    2019 Award Women in Defence Award Finalist Australian Defence Magazine Australia -
    2018 Award South Australian Science Excellence Award Finalist Government of South Australia Australia -
    2018 Award University Doctoral Research Medal University of Adelaide - -
    2018 Award Best Presentation Award The 11th IAPR International Conference on Biometrics - -
    2017 Award Dean's Commendation for Doctoral Thesis Excellence University of Adelaide - -
    2017 Award Postgraduate Travel Fellowship University of Adelaide - -
    2016 Award Ross Vining Memorial Award Australian and New Zealand Forensic Science Society Australia -
    2016 Award International Conference Travel Grant University of Adelaide - -
    2016 Award Highly Commended Oral Presentation Australian and New Zealand Forensic Science Society - -
    2016 Award Symposium Award Australian and New Zealand Forensic Science Society - -
  • Research Interests

  • Journals

    Year Citation
    2023 Brewer, R., Westlake, B., Swearingen, T., Patterson, S., Bright, D., Ross, A., . . . Michalski, D. (2023). Advancing child sexual abuse investigations using biometrics and social network analysis. Trends and Issues in Crime and Criminal Justice, 668(668), 1-16.
    DOI
    2022 Westlake, B., Brewer, R., Swearingen, T., Ross, A., Patterson, S., Michalski, D., . . . Afana, E. (2022). Developing automated methods to detect and match face and voice biometrics in child sexual abuse videos. Trends and Issues in Crime and Criminal Justice, 648(648), 1-15.
    DOI Scopus3 WoS1
    2019 Michalski, D., Heyer, R., & Semmler, C. (2019). The performance of practitioners conducting facial comparisons on images of children across age. PLoS ONE, 14(11), e0225298-1-e0225298-17.
    DOI Scopus3 WoS1 Europe PMC1
    2018 Phillips, P. J., Heyer, R., & Michalski, D. (2018). Effectiveness of a Facial Forensic Training Course. Journal of Vision, 18(10), 560.
    DOI
    2014 Michalski, D. J., & Bearman, C. (2014). Factors affecting the decision making of pilots who fly in outback Australia. Safety Science, 68, 288-293.
    DOI Scopus8 WoS8
    2012 Churches, O., Callahan, R., Michalski, D., Brewer, N., Turner, E., Keage, H., . . . Nicholls, M. (2012). How academics face the world: a study of 5829 homepage pictures. PLoS One, 7(7), e38940-1-e38940-4.
    DOI Scopus15 WoS14 Europe PMC8
  • Book Chapters

    Year Citation
    2017 Michalski, D. J., & Bearman, C. (2017). Factors affecting the decision making of pilots who fly in Outback Australia. In Decision Making in Aviation (pp. 409-414).
  • Conference Papers

    Year Citation
    2023 Nguyen, K., Fookes, C., Sridharan, S., Liu, F., Liu, X., Ross, A., . . . Doretto, G. (2023). AG-ReID 2023: Aerial-Ground Person Re-identification Challenge Results. In 2023 IEEE International Joint Conference on Biometrics, IJCB 2023. IEEE.
    DOI
    2022 Baker, C., & Michalski, D. (2022). Psychological self-care when viewing distressing imagery.. In Defence Human Sciences Symposium. Sydney.
    2022 Michalski, D., Malec, C., Bassed, R., Ferguson, D., & Baker, C. (2022). Facial recognition for post-mortem identification. In UK Biometrics Congress. London, UK.
    2021 Michalski, D. J., Snyder, G., & Clothier, E. (2021). Expert performance on facial images of children. In 22nd Triennial Meeting of the International Association of Forensic Sciences. Sydney, Australia.
    2021 Clothier, E., Michalski, D., Semmler, C., & Heyer, R. (2021). The impact of age group on one-to-many face matching performance using images of children. In 22nd Triennial Meeting of the International Association of Forensic Sciences. Sydney, Australia.
    2021 Michalski, D., & Baker, C. (2021). The feasibility of facial recognition across facial decomposition. In 22nd Triennial Meeting of the International Association of Forensic Sciences. Sydney, Australia.
    2020 Michalski, D., & Snyder, G. (2020). Findings from the 2019 ENFSI test. In Unfamiliar Facial Identification Group Conference,. Sydney, Australia.
    2019 Michalski, D. J. (2019). Face recognition and children – a research update. In Biometrics Congress. London, UK..
    2019 Michalski, D. (2019). Discussion panel: How do we make a decision whether to use biometrics for children?. In Biometrics Congress. London, UK.
    2019 Srinivas, N., Ricanek, K., Michalski, D., Bolme, D. S., & King, M. (2019). Face recognition algorithm bias: Performance differences on images of children and adults. In IEEE Computer Society Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition Workshops Vol. 2019-June (pp. 2269-2277). Long Beach, CA: IEEE.
    DOI Scopus33 WoS15
    2019 Hole, M., Michalski, D., & Malec, C. (2019). DST’s Child Identification R&D Program: Algorithm evaluations and development. In Unfamiliar Facial Identification Group Conference. Sydney, Australia.
    2019 Michalski, D., MacLeod, V., Snyder, G., & Pearce, T. (2019). DST’s Child Identification R&D Program: Overview and human research. In Unfamiliar Facial Identification Group Conference. Sydney, Australia.
    2018 Malec, C., Michalski, D., & Hole, M. (2018). Australian Government FR algorithm performance testing. In International Face Performance Conference. Maryland, USA.
    2018 Michalski, D. (2018). Findings from an examination of practitioner and algorithm performance when comparing facial images of children. In Unfamiliar Facial Identification Group Conference. Sydney.
    2018 Michalski, D., Yiu, S., & Malec, C. (2018). The impact of age and threshold variation on facial recognition algorithm performance using images of children. In The 11th IAPR International Conference on Biometrics (ICB 2018) (pp. 217-224). online: IEEE.
    DOI
    2018 Michalski, D. (2018). Developing techniques and technologies to identify and classify children. In Biometrics Congress. London, UK.
    2017 Michalski, D., McLindin, B., Semmler, C., & Heyer, R. (2017). The impact of ageing on facial comparisons with images of children conducted by humans and automated systems. In International Conference of the Society for Applied Research in Memory and Cognition.
    2017 Heyer, R. L., Michalski, D., Lee, H., Calleja, J., & Vu, L. (2017). Vulnerabilities in face recognition. In Unfamiliar Facial Identification Group Conference. Sydney.
    2017 Michalski, D. J. (2017). The CSI effect: What is facial recognition technology really capable of?. In Asia-Pacific Coroner’s Society Conference. Adelaide, Australia.
    2017 Michalski, D. J. (2017). Facial comparisons with images of children: Current research and future research directions.. In Facial Identification Scientific Working Group.. Quantico, USA..
    2016 Michalski, D., Heyer, R., & Semmler, C. A. (2016). Facial comparisons with images of children: Human and algorithm performance. In Biometrics 2016. London, United Kingdom.
    2016 Michalski, D., McLindin, B., Semmler, C., & Heyer, R. L. (2016). Facial image comparisons of children: How does the age of children in images affect human and algorithm performance?. In International Symposium on the Forensic Sciences (ANZFSS’16). Auckland, New Zealand.
    2016 Heyer, R., Michalski, D., Lee, H., Kardos, M., & McLindin, B. (2016). An update of Defence Science and Technology Group's unfamiliar facial identification and facial recognition research. In Unfamiliar Facial Identification Group Conference. Sydney.
    2015 Michalski, D., McLindin, B., Semmler, C., & Heyer, R. L. (2015). Is facial image comparison as effective for verifying children as it is adults in security applications?. In Florey International Postgraduate Research Conference. Adelaide.
    2014 Michalski, D., McLindin, B., Heyer, R. L., & Semmler, C. (2014). Understanding how Age Affects Facial Matching Performance of Humans and Facial Recognition Systems: Requirements Collection from Whole of Government and Industry. In Defence Human Sciences Symposium,. Adelaide.
    2014 Michalski, D., McLindin, B., Semmler, C., & Heyer, R. L. (2014). Examining the Performance of Human Operators and Automated Facial Recognition Systems for the Identification of Missing and Exploited Children. In International Symposium on the Forensic Sciences (ANZFSS’14). Adelaide.
    2014 Michalski, D., McLindin, B., Semmler, C., & Heyer, R. L. (2014). Empirically Examining the Impact of Age Related Variables on Facial Recognition Algorithms and Human Operators: A Methodological Primer. In 15th Biometrics Institute Asia Pacific Conference. Sydney.
    2014 Heyer, R. L., Michalski, D., Malec, C., & McLindin, B. (2014). Vulnerabilities of Facial Recognition: The Impact of Glasses and Ageing on Facial Recognition Performance. In Biometrics 2014. London.
    2013 Michalski, D. J., McLindin, B., MacLeod, V., Stacy, E., & Malec, C. (2013). Face-in-a-Crowd identification: Human aspects of searching for persons of interest with and without facial recognition systems. In 14th Biometrics Institute Asia Pacific Conference.
    2013 Heyer, R., Michalski, D., McLindin, B., & Nichols, G. (2013). An update on face related research.. In Unfamiliar Facial Identification Group Conference.
  • Conference Items

    Year Citation
    2020 Clothier, E. S., Michalski, D., Semmler, C., & Heyer, R. (2020). How age impacts human performance on a 1:8 face matching task with images of children. Poster session presented at the meeting of Unfamiliar Facial Identification Group. Sydney, Australia.
    2017 Michalski, D. J. (2017). Facial comparisons with images of children: Current research and future research directions. Poster session presented at the meeting of Facial Identification Scientific Working Group. Quantico, USA.
    2016 Michalski, D., McLindin, B., Semmler, C., & Heyer, R. L. (2016). The impact of extending the validity of children’s passports from 5 to 10 years. Poster session presented at the meeting of Florey International Postgraduate Research Conference. Adelaide.
    2014 Michalski, D. J., McLindin, B., Heyer, R., & Semmler, C. (2014). Whole of government and industry requirements collection: Understanding how the ageing variable affects facial comparison performance of humans and automated algorithms. Poster session presented at the meeting of Florey International Postgraduate Conference.
    2013 Michalski, D., McLindin, B., MacLeod, V., Stacy, E., & Malec, C. (2013). Face-in-a-Crowd identification: Human aspects of searching for persons of interest with and without facial recognition systems. Poster session presented at the meeting of 14th Biometrics Institute Asia Pacific Conference.
    2012 Nichols, G., Heyer, R. L., Nicholson, R., & Michalski, D. (2012). Facial Identification at Long-range. Poster session presented at the meeting of International Symposium on the Forensic Sciences (ANZFSS’12). Hobart.
  • Theses

    Year Citation
    2017 Michalski, D. (2017). The impact of age-related variables on facial comparisons with images of children: Algorithm and practitioner performance. (PhD Thesis).
  • Other Supervision Activities

    Date Role Research Topic Location Program Supervision Type Student Load Student Name
    2019 - ongoing Co-Supervisor The Impact of Age on Human Face Matching Performance with Images of Children Univeristy of Adelaide - Honours - Eden Clothier
    2018 - 2018 Co-Supervisor The Performance of Untrained People Verifying Children and Adults on a Face Matching Task University of Adelaide - Honours - Thomas Pearce
    2018 - 2018 Co-Supervisor Age Estimation based on Facial Images: Potential Implications for Refugee Processing University of Adelaide - Honours - Gemma Snyder
  • Committee Memberships

    Date Role Committee Institution Country
    2017 - 2018 Member SA Branch of the Australian and New Zealand Forensic Science Society Australian and New Zealand Forensic Science Society Australia
  • Memberships

    Date Role Membership Country
    2016 - ongoing - Society for Applied Research in Memory and Cognition -
    2012 - ongoing - Biometrics Institute -
    2012 - ongoing - Australian and New Zealand Forensic Science Society -

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