Dr Dana Michalski
School of Psychology
College of Education, Behavioural and Social Science
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 the identification of people in challenging contexts, for example: long-range identification, child identification and disaster victim identification.
I also conduct and lead a team specialising in test, evaluation, validation, and verification (TEVV) of AI systems.
More broadly, I am interested in AI/ML, biometrics, forensic comparison sciences, human identification, human factors, forensic psychology.
| 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 |
| 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 | - | - |
| Year | Citation |
|---|---|
| 2024 | Michalski, D., Malec, C., Clothier, E., & Bassed, R. (2024). Facial recognition for disaster victim identification. Forensic Science International, 361, 112108. Scopus5 Europe PMC1 |
| 2024 | Clothier, E., Michalski, D., Malec, C., & Nowina-Krowicki, M. (2024). Are contemporary facial recognition algorithms making human facial comparison performance worse?. Forensic Science International, 364, 112202. Scopus3 Europe PMC2 |
| 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. Scopus4 WoS3 |
| 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. Scopus8 WoS6 |
| 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. Scopus4 WoS4 Europe PMC2 |
| 2018 | Phillips, P. J., Heyer, R., & Michalski, D. (2018). Effectiveness of a Facial Forensic Training Course. Journal of Vision, 18(10), 560. |
| 2014 | Michalski, D. J., & Bearman, C. (2014). Factors affecting the decision making of pilots who fly in outback Australia. Safety science, 68, 288-293. Scopus11 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. Scopus19 WoS18 Europe PMC10 |
| 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). |
| Year | Citation |
|---|---|
| 2024 | Nguyen, K., Fookes, C., Sridharan, S., Liu, F., Liu, X., Ross, A., . . . Doretto, G. (2024). AG-ReID 2023: Aerial-Ground Person Re-identification Challenge Results. In 2023 IEEE International Joint Conference on Biometrics, IJCB 2023 (pp. 1-10). Ljubljana, Slovenia: IEEE. DOI Scopus8 |
| 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 Scopus51 WoS37 |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 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). |
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 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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