Dr Neil Caton

Experience

• 

  Australian Institute for Suicide Research and Prevention

  Feb 2018 - Sept 2020

  Research Assistant

  This position is a member of the Australian Institute for Suicide Research and Prevention (AISRAP), which is a specialist research institute within the Griffith Health group and part of the Menzies Health Institute Queensland. My key duties within this role include:• Conduct literature searches and literature reviews;• Undertake data collection, collation, entry, and analysis;• Manage incoming suicide cases for the Queensland Suicide Register;• Unearth qualitative/theme-based insights from masses of information from large numbers of individual suicide cases (i.e., police reports, coroner reports, toxicology reports, post-mortem reports; I have personally read several thousand Queensland-based suicide cases in detail);• Maintain relationships with multiple stakeholders, coroners, and police officers;• Prepare, and contribute to the preparation of, high quality presentations and reports for governmental and industry bodies;• Perform administrative tasks relating to current research projects (e.g., ensure records relating to projects are kept up to date);• Contribute to the preparation of journal publications and grant applications as required; and• Maintain compliance with relevant legislation and University policies and procedures.Key achievements: • Published three scientific manuscripts on large-scale psychological well-being interventions for the construction and energy sectors in international peer-reviewed journals, using quantitative, longitudinal, and qualitative analyses• Analysed and revealed insights into Australian suicide trends, in a written report that was directly requested by and directly delivered to the Health Minister Greg Hunt• Unearthed insights in multiple reports to governmental and industry stakeholders, including the effectiveness of recently installed suicide prevention measures (e.g., Sydney's The Gap barriers, Brisbane Story Bridge barriers) and examining the predictors of suicide clusters in local communities Show less

• 

  The University of Queensland

  Oct 2018 - Dec 2022

  This role involved working on quantitative projects on investor perceptions of sector-level progress toward net-zero targets for the Australian Corporate Treasury Association, as well as conducting a systematic review of qualitative research on barriers towards the mobilisation of capital towards climate change solutions. This qualitative systematic literature review involved reviewing several thousand qualitative studies on investor perceptions of climate change solutions, including reviewing the methodological techniques employed in these qualitative studies. Show less This role involved teaching undergraduate students about quantitative and qualitative data, as well as how to methodologically and statistically evaluate research studies. This teaching position, which involved teaching up to five classes of between 20 and 50 students per semester, involved teaching the following psychology and statistics-based courses:- PSYC1030 (Semester 1, 2019, 2021, 2022): Introductory psychology course comprising over 1,000 students. This course introduces students to basic psychological concepts, scientific reasoning, and report writing, with an emphasis placed on how to evaluate the methodological and statistical techniques employed in a variety of different research studies. I regularly taught in-person and online classes, comprising between 30 and 50 students, which involved facilitating group-based discussions and evaluating students' presentation skills, and consistently received outstanding tutor ratings (2019: 4.74 out of 5; 2021: 4.56 out of 5; 2022: 4.51 out of 5).- PSYC2063 (Semester 2, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022): Intermediate second year statistics-based course. This course introduces students to SPSS, teaching them supervised machine learning techniques (e.g., multiple regression, mediation, moderation, suppression effects) as applied to real-world datasets. Each week, students are required to complete a behavioural survey (designed in Qualtrics) and distribute these surveys to their friends, resulting in weekly datasets with over 1,000 participants. With each week comprising a new and large dataset, students are taught how to analyse and explore these datasets using a variety of advanced statistical techniques. I regularly taught online and in-person classes, comprising between 20 and 30 students, and consistently received outstanding tutor ratings for this heavily statistical course (2019: 4.39 out of 5; 2020: 4.44 out of 5; 2021: 4.34 out of 5; 2022: 4.64 out of 5). Show less

  • Researcher - School of Business

    Feb 2022 - Dec 2022

  • Sessional Academic Instructor

    Feb 2019 - Dec 2022

  • Research Scholar - School of Psychology

    Oct 2018 - Dec 2022
• 

  Square Circle

  Jan 2022 - Feb 2023

  Quantitative Research Specialist

  Square Circle is a global development consulting company that partners with communities, governments, civil society, the private sector and development partners to connect policy and capacity to better serve diverse communities. My role involved offering quantitative and research-based expertise to emerge the company's quantitative research presence, with an emphasis on:• Unearthing insights into Papua New Guinea citizens’ and businesses’ perceptions of jurisdictional and national security• Performing statistical analyses in R within short time periods• Presenting data and methodological decisions at workshops to senior government officials• Building surveys in a manner conducive to eventual statistical analyses• Write reports on statistical analyses in an easy-to-understand manner• Assisting with other consulting projects where needed, such as for the mining and extractives sectorsKey achievements:• Within four days, created a 300,000+ word, electronically navigable document with over 3,000 tables (in company-requested colours and format) of advanced inferential statistics, presented in an easy-to-understand manner of key information requested by clients.• Transformed these quantitative insights into an easily digestible and insightful report for the client, integrated with qualitative, focus-group data and longitudinal comparisons. The final report comprised nine chapters, which were 10 to 20 pages in length, for each of the seven Papua New Guinea provinces under examination, people with disabilities, and a methodology chapter.• Presented insights in workshops to members of the Australian High Commission, PNG Department of Justice and Attorney-General, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Justice Services and Stability for Development program Show less

• 

  Australian Public Service

  Feb 2023 - now

  • Acting Assistant Director

    Jun 2024 - now

  • Senior Data and Policy Adviser

    Jan 2024 - Jun 2024

  • Senior Policy and Program Officer

    Feb 2023 - Jan 2024