Nico Adams

Nico currently holds the position of the Optus Chair (Professor) of Digital Innovation and IoT and is also the Associate Dean of Industry and Innovation at the College of Science and Engineering at James Cook University. He is involved in supporting industries in North Queensland and beyond, helping them to make use of digital tools and technologies, such as the Internet of Things, to create new products and services and to innovate their business models. His main areas of research are digital twins, digital systems modeling, and systems science.

Before joining JCU, Nico was an Associate Professor at Swinburne University of Technology and served as the Director of Swinburne’s Factory of the Future. Nico pioneered a new approach to university-industry collaboration, focusing on creating long-term industry partnerships through joint market exploration and co-designing business, product, and technology strategies before engaging in technical and R&D work.

Prior to rejoining academia, Nico held multiple roles, including IMCRC Program Lead for Industry 4.0 and Digital Transformation, where he co-created the widely used "futuremap" innovation diagnostic. He also served in senior research scientist and product manager roles in CSIRO’s Data61 and manufacturing business units, as well as research associate roles at the University of Cambridge and the European Bioinformatics Institute. Nico holds degrees from the Universities of York and Oxford.