Assistant Director-General and Chief Data & Analytics Officer, The Australian Centre for Disease Control
The Data, Evidence and Analytics Branch governs a modern, ethical, and intelligent public health data and surveillance ecosystem to deliver insights for action.
Before joining the Australian CDC, Jacob led the Strategy Branch to deliver the policy development and legislation work to establish the Australian CDC. This included extensive stakeholder engagement and complex policy work with state and territory governments to design a data sharing regime to support public health activities.
Previous roles in the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing include leading the response to COVID-19 and other emergencies in aged care settings and supporting aged care prudential reforms. This included building and redesigning reporting of COVID-19 cases and other supports to aged care homes, harnessing data to support delivery of government supports.
He is familiar with working with complex data and establishing processes to ensure strong data governance and the quality of reporting outputs.
Throughout roles across the Australian Public Service, Jacob has delivered complex strategic policy projects and advice, anchored in data and evidence. A consistent theme has been in using data to tell a compelling policy narrative in support of a national policy agenda – across health, aged care, social security, and international development portfolios.
Jacob holds a Master of Public Health from the Australian National University and a Bachelor of Laws (Hons)/Bachelor of Arts from the University of Notre Dame Australia.