Asia-Pacific Stats Café Series: How Can We Harmonize Official statistics in University Curriculum?

Ms Gemma Van Halderen has over thirty years of experience in government statistics and more recently, as Chief Data Officer in the Australian Government Department of Social Services. From 2018-2021, she was Director of the UN ESCAP Statistics Division and worked extensively with governments, multilateral agencies and the statistical community to support developing nations across Asia and the Pacific meet their data obligations under the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and respond to the global COVID-19 pandemic.

Ms Van Halderen has been a member of the statistical profession since her undergraduate days, filling executive committee roles with her local branch of the Australian Statistical Society before expanding to the International Association for Official Statistics and becoming an elected member of the International Statistics Institute.  She was the focal point for the Association’s Young Statistician Prize from 2014-2023, and participated in World Statistics Congresses in Hong Kong, Malaysia, Brazil, Turkey and Australia.

Ms. Van Halderen holds an Honour’s degree in mathematical statistics from the Australian National University.

Dr. Bersales was the first National Statistician of the Philippines and served in this capacity from 2014 to 2019, heading the Philippine Statistics Authority. She is currently undersecretary for population and development of the Philippines, heading the Commission on Population and Development of the country. Her recent research papers include: Reaching the Demographic Dividend to Achieve Inclusive Economic Growth, Measuring the Contribution of the Informal Economy to Philippine Economic Growth in the context of a Pandemic; Big Data in the Philippines: How Do We Actually Use them; Team Approach in the Conduct of Households Survey; and, The Multidimensional Approach to Measuring Poverty.

Dr. Astuti earned her PhD in statistics from Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember Surabaya in 2013. She has been lecturing in Politeknik Statistika STIS-BPS Statistics Indonesia since 1994. She worked as a vice chairman for Academic Affair, from 2013 to 2018 and as a head of statistics department from 2007 to 2008 at Sekolah Tinggi Ilmu Statistik. Her research interest is in Non-parametric Regression, Modeling Count Response and Analysis of Mortality Rate.

On retirement, Sharleen had two half-time positions: Adjunct Professor of Official Statistics in the School of Government at Victoria University of Wellington and General Manager, Statistics Education at Statistics New Zealand. She previously held a variety of research, policy and management positions in New Zealand state sector agencies including the Ministries of Agriculture and Maori Affairs. Her most recent work was developing draft content for an UNITAR e-learning course, Understanding data and statistics better – for more effective SDG decision making, and advising on New Zealand’s review of national assessments in its senior secondary schools.