JCU > Research Portfolio > Dr Carla Ewels

About

Carla Ewels is a Lecturer in statistics/data sciences at James Cook University. She received her doctoral in statistics from the Queensland University of Technology supervised by the Distinguished Professor Kerrie Mengersen. Carla has strong interests in statistical modelling and methods, particularly in the Bayeisan framework. These include, but are not limited to, modelling of complex systems, Bayesian temporal and spatial models, model comparisons, classification, clustering, analysis of big data and Markov Chain Monte Carlo methods. She is especially interested in applying statistics to real problems. To date, she has worked in the field of marine and medical research, genetics, agriculture and fisheries.

Teaching

MA2405: Advanced Statistical Modelling (Level 2; CNS & TSV)
MA3405: Statistical Data Mining for Big Data (Level 3; CNS & TSV)
MA3831: Natural Language Processing, Web Scraping and Large Data Processing (Level 3; CNS & TSV)
MA5405: Data Mining (Level 5; TSV)
SC2209: Quantitative Methods in Science-Advanced (Level 2; CNS & TSV)

Interests

Research

Statistical modelling and methods
Bayesian statistics
Real world data
Uncertainty
Data sciences
Model and variable selection

Teaching

Statistics

Research Disciplines

Publications

These are the most recent publications associated with this author. To see a detailed profile of all publications stored at JCU, visit ResearchOnline@JCU. Hover over Altmetrics badges to see social impact.

Journal Articles

Martin G, Yanez-Arenas C, Plowright R, Chen C, Roberts B and Skerratt L (2018) Hendra virus spillover is a bimodal system driven by climatic factors. EcoHealth, 15 (3), pp. 526-542, DOI:10.1007/s10393-017-1309-y.
Martin G, Yanez-Arenas C, Chen C, Plowright R, Webb R and Skerratt L (2018) Climate change could increase the geographic extent of Hendra virus spillover risk. EcoHealth, 15 (3), pp. 509-525, DOI:10.1007/s10393-018-1322-9.
Chen C, Bourne D, Drovandi C, Mengersen K, Willis B, Caley M and Sato Y (2017) Modelling environmental drivers of black band disease outbreaks in populations of foliose corals in the genus Montipora. PeerJ, 5, Article: e3438, DOI:10.7717/peerj.3438.
Martin Munoz De Cote G, Webb R, Chen C, Plowright R and Skerratt L (2017) Microclimates might limit indirect spillover of the bat borne zoonotic Hendra virus. Microbial Ecology, 74 (1), pp. 106-115, DOI:10.1007/s00248-017-0934-x.
Pratchett M, Caballes C, Wilmes J, Matthews S, Mellin C, Sweatman H, Nadler L, Brodie J, Thompson C, Hoey J, Bos A, Byrne M, Messmer V, V. Fortunato S, Chen C, Buck A, Babcock R and Uthicke S (2017) Thirty years of research on crown-of-thorns starfish (1986-2016): scientific advances and emerging opportunities. Diversity, 9 (4), DOI:10.3390/d9040041.
Martin G, Yanez-Arenas C, Roberts B, Chen C, Plowright R, Webb R and Skerratt L (2016) Climatic suitability influences species specific abundance patterns of Australian flying foxes and risk of Hendra virus spillover. One Health, 2, pp. 115-121, DOI:10.1016/j.onehlt.2016.07.004.
Martin G, Plowright R, Chen C, Kault D, Selleck P and Skerratt L (2015) Hendra virus survival does not explain spillover patterns and implicates relatively direct transmission routes from flying foxes to horses. Journal of General Virology, 96, pp. 1229-1237, DOI:10.1099/vir.0.000073.
Golledge J, Ewels C, Muller R and Walker P (2014) Association of chronic kidney disease categories defined with different formulae with major adverse events in patients with peripheral vascular disease. Atherosclerosis, 232 (2), pp. 289-297, DOI:10.1016/j.atherosclerosis.2013.11.034.

Conference Papers

Everingham Y, Clarke A, Chen C, Van Gorder S and McGuire P (2007) Exploring the capabilities of a long lead climate forecasting system for the NSW sugar industry. Proceedings of the 2007 Conference of the Australian Society of Sugar Cane Technologists. In: 29th Conference of the Australian Society of Sugar Cane Technologists, 8-11 May 2007, Cairns, Queensland, Australia

Current Funding

Current and recent Research Funding to JCU is shown by funding source and project.

Great Barrier Reef Foundation - Crown-of-Thorns Control Innovation Program (CCIP)

Crown-of-thorns starfish control innovation program ? Feasibility and Design Phase (Phase 1)

Indicative Funding: $346,700 over 1 year
Summary: Recognising that manual control of COTS during outbreaks is not, on its own, an ideal long-term solution, new efforts were launched in 2016 to develop an Integrated Pest Management approach for COTS (as part of the National Environmental Science Program), led by CSIRO and involving numerous partners. This approach relies on understanding COTS distribution, movement and population dynamics, targeting critical locations and exploring new and more effective control methods. This involves both improving the efficiency and effectiveness of the current methods while also focusing efforts to better understand and manage the pre-conditioning and initiation of outbreaks. A Feasibility and Design Phase (Phase 1) is focused on assessing the feasibility (technical, social and regulatory) and modelling the benefit (impact) at scale of a broad range of possible improvements and interventions. Applying a transparent and consistent scientific framework, this Phase will lead to recommendations on priority areas that should be further investigated and developed
Investigators: Morgan Pratchett, Damien Burrows, Ciemon Caballes, Stewart Lockie and Carla Ewels (ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, College of Science & Engineering and Cairns Institute)
Keywords: Coral Reef; acanthaster spp; Management; Disturbance; Monitoring

Supervision

Advisory Accreditation: I can be on your Advisory Panel as a Primary or Secondary Advisor.

These Higher Degree Research projects are either current or by students who have completed their studies within the past 5 years at JCU. Linked titles show theses available within ResearchOnline@JCU.

Current

Parallel and Scalable Neural Network Algorithms (PhD , Secondary Advisor)
Using Weather Radars to Inform Data-Driven Irrigation Practices (Masters , Secondary Advisor)
Dynamic and stochastic vehicle routing for autonomous weed control. (PhD , Secondary Advisor)

Collaboration

The map shows research collaborations by institution from the past 7 years.
Note: Map points are indicative of the countries or states that institutions are associated with.