Dr Richard Bean
Research Fellow
School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Affiliate of UQ Cyber Research Centre
UQ Cyber Research Centre
Casual Research Assistant
UQ Gas & Energy Transition Research Centre
Researcher biography
Dr Richard Bean is an affiliate at the UQ Cyber Research Centre.
Richard brings to his work a rich background in data science honed in academia in Australia and Iran, as well as in government (Queensland Health) and industry sectors (ROAM Consulting, Redback, and the Australian Energy Market Operator). With over 60 publications to his name, his research interests span a wide range of areas, including combinatorics, statistics, power systems, classical cryptography, and transport. He is a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Energy and current chair of the Newcastle branch.
Richard is well-known in the public sphere, frequently appearing on radio shows to share his insights into the solutions for various unsolved ciphers. His research extends into areas of national science and research priorities, such as Energy, Transport, Health, and Cyber Security.
In addition to his academic pursuits, Richard has a passion for cycling and is active in cycling advocacy. He also enjoys tackling classical cryptography challenges in his free time.
Publications
Book Chapters
Bean, Richard, Snow, Stephen, Li, Xiang, Glencross, Mashhuda and Chapman, Archie (2025). Machine learning for energy management. Research handbook on energy management. (pp. 123-160) edited by Reinhard Madlener and Valentin Bertsch. Cheltenham, United Kingdom: Edward Elgar Publishing. doi: 10.4337/9781800376502.00013
Bean, Richard, Zhang, Yanjun, Ko, Ryan K. L., Mao, Xinyu and Bai, Guangdong (2023). Preserving the privacy and cybersecurity of home energy data. Emerging trends in cybersecurity applications. (pp. 323-343) edited by Kevin Daimi, Abeer Alsadoon, Cathryn Peoples and Nour El Madhoun. Cham, Switzerland: Springer International Publishing. doi: 10.1007/978-3-031-09640-2_14
Pojani, Dorina, Chen, Jiashuo, Mateo-Babiano, Iderlina, Bean, Richard and Corcoran, Jonathan (2020). Docked and dockless public bike-sharing schemes: research, practice and discourse. Handbook of sustainable transport. (pp. 129-138) edited by Carey Cutis. Cheltenham, Glos, United Kingdom: Edward Elgar Publishing. doi: 10.4337/9781789900477.00025
McLachlan, G. J., Bean, R. W. and Ng, S. K. (2017). Clustering. Bioinformatics Vol. II: Structure, Function, and Applications. (pp. 345-362) edited by Jonathan M. Keith. New York, NY, United States: Humana Press. doi: 10.1007/978-1-4939-6613-4_19
McLachlan, G. J., Bean, R. W. and Ng, S.-K. (2008). Clustering. Bioinformatics, volume 2: Structure, function and applications. (pp. 423-439) edited by J. M. Keith. New Jersey, United States: Humana Press. doi: 10.1007/978-1-60327-429-6_22
McLachlan, Geoffrey J., Ng, Angus and Bean, Richard W. (2008). Clustering of microarray data via mixture models. Statistical advances in the biomedical sciences: clinical trials, epidemiology, survival analysis, and bioinformatics. (pp. 365-383) edited by Atanu Biswas, Sujay Datta, Jason P. Fine and Mark R. Segal. Hoboken, NJ, United States: John Wiley & Sons. doi: 10.1002/9780470181218.ch21
Journal Articles
Bergmeir, Christoph, De Nijs, Frits, Genov, Evgenii, Sriramulu, Abishek, Abolghasemi, Mahdi, Bean, Richard, Betts, John, Bui, Quang, Dinh, Nam Trong, Einecke, Nils, Esmaeilbeigi, Rasul, Ferraro, Scott, Galketiya, Priya, Glasgow, Robert, Godahewa, Rakshitha, Kang, Yanfei, Limmer, Steffen, Magdalena, Luis, Montero-Manso, Pablo, Peralta, Daniel, Kumar, Yogesh Pipada Sunil, Rosales-Pérez, Alejandro, Ruddick, Julian, Stratigakos, Akylas, Stuckey, Peter, Tack, Guido, Triguero, Isaac and Yuan, Rui (2025). Predict+optimize problem in renewable energy scheduling. IEEE Access, 13, 60064-60087. doi: 10.1109/access.2025.3555393
Bean, Richard, Pojani, Dorina and Corcoran, Jonathan (2024). Natural barriers facing female cyclists and how to overcome them: a cross national examination of bikesharing schemes. Journal of Cycling and Micromobility Research, 2 100025, 1-15. doi: 10.1016/j.jcmr.2024.100025
Piorko, Megan, Lang, Sarah and Bean, Richard (2023). Deciphering the Hermeticae Philosophiae Medulla: textual cultures of alchemical secrecy. Ambix, 70 (2), 150-183. doi: 10.1080/00026980.2023.2201744
Bean, Richard (2023). Forecasting the Monash microgrid for the IEEE-CIS technical challenge. Energies, 16 (3) 1050, 1-23. doi: 10.3390/en16031050
Kimpton, Anthony, Loginova, Julia, Pojani, Dorina, Bean, Richard, Sigler, Thomas and Corcoran, Jonathan (2022). Weather to scoot? How weather shapes shared e-scooter ridership patterns. Journal of Transport Geography, 104 103439, 1-10. doi: 10.1016/j.jtrangeo.2022.103439
Bean, Richard W., Lasry, George and Weierud, Frode (2022). Eavesdropping on the Biafra-Lisbon link - Breaking historical ciphers from the Biafran war (vol 46, pg 1, 2022). Cryptologia, 46 (3) 2061772, 290-290. doi: 10.1080/01611194.2022.2061772
Bean, Richard , Pojani, Dorina and Corcoran, Jonathan (2021). How does weather affect bikeshare use? A comparative analysis of forty cities across climate zones. Journal of Transport Geography, 95 103155, 103155. doi: 10.1016/j.jtrangeo.2021.103155
Snow, Stephen, Bean, Richard, Glencross, Mashhuda and Horrocks, Neil (2020). Drivers behind residential electricity demand fluctuations due to COVID-19 restrictions. Energies, 13 (21) 5738, 1-20. doi: 10.3390/en13215738
Bean, Richard, Snow, Stephen, Glencross, Mashhuda, Viller, Stephen and Horrocks, Neil (2020). Keeping the power on to home medical devices. PloS One, 15 (7) e0235068, e0235068. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0235068
Bean, Richard W., Lasry, George and Weierud, Frode (2020). Eavesdropping on the Biafra-Lisbon link – breaking historical ciphers from the Biafran war. Cryptologia, 46 (1), 1-66. doi: 10.1080/01611194.2020.1762261
Tushar, Wayes, Saha, Tapan Kumar, Yuen, Chau, Azim, M. Imran, Morstyn, Thomas, Poor, H. Vincent, Niyato, Dustin and Bean, Richard (2020). A coalition formation game framework for peer-to-peer energy trading. Applied Energy, 261 114436, 114436. doi: 10.1016/j.apenergy.2019.114436
Tushar, Wayes, Saha, Tapan Kumar, Yuen, Chau, Morstyn, Thomas, Nahid-Al-Masood, Poor, H. Vincent and Bean, Richard (2020). Grid influenced peer-to-peer energy trading. IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid, 11 (2) 8818368, 1407-1418. doi: 10.1109/tsg.2019.2937981
Bean, Richard (2020). Letter from Richard Bean. Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, 84 (1), 56-57.
Tushar, Wayes, Saha, Tapan Kumar, Yuen, Chau, Liddell, Paul, Bean, Richard and Poor, H. Vincent (2018). Peer-to-Peer Energy Trading with Sustainable User Participation: A Game Theoretic Approach. IEEE Access, 6 8490655, 62932-62943. doi: 10.1109/ACCESS.2018.2875405
Mateo-Babiano, Iderlina, Bean, Richard, Corcoran, Jonathan and Pojani, Dorina (2016). How does our natural and built environment affect the use of bicycle sharing?. Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, 94, 295-307. doi: 10.1016/j.tra.2016.09.015
McLaren, C. E., Gordeuk, V. R., Chen, W. -P., Barton, J. C., Action, R. T., Speechley, M., Castro, O., Adams, P. C., Snively, B. M., Harris, E. L., Reboussin, D. M., McLachlan, G. J. and Bean, R. (2008). Bivariate mixture modeling of transferrin saturation and serum ferritin concentration in Asians, African Americans, Hispanics, and whites in the Hemochromatosis and Iron Overload Screening (HEIRS) Study. Translational Research, 151 (2), 97-109. doi: 10.1016/j.trsl.2007.10.002
Do, K. A., McLachlan, G. J., Bean, R. W. and Wen, S. (2007). Application of gene shaving and mixture models to cluster microarray gene expression data. Cancer Informatics, 5, 25-43. doi: 10.1177/117693510700500002
McLachlan, G. J., Bean, R. W. and Jones, L. B. T. (2007). Extension of the Mixture of Factor Analyzers Model to Incorporate the Multivariate t-Distribution. Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, 51 (11), 5327-5338. doi: 10.1016/j.csda.2006.09.015
Jones, L. B. T., Bean, R., McLachlan, G. J. and Zhu, J. X. (2006). Mixture models for detecting differentially expressed genes in microarrays. International Journal of Neural Systems, 16 (5), 353-362. doi: 10.1142/S0129065706000755
McLachlan, G J, Ng, S K and Bean, R W (2006). Robust cluster analysis via mixture models. Austrian Journal of Statistics, 35 (2 & 3), 157-174.
McLachlan, GJ, Bean, RW and Jones, LBT (2006). A simple implementation of a normal mixture approach to differential gene expression in multiclass microarrays. Bioinformatics, 22 (13), 1608-1615. doi: 10.1093/bioinformatics/btl148
Bean, Richard (2006). Latin trades on three or four rows. Discrete Mathematics, 306 (23), 3028-3041. doi: 10.1016/j.disc.2005.06.040
Bean, Richard (2005). Critical sets in the elementary abelian 2- And 3-groups. Utilitas Mathematica, 68, 53-61.
McLachlan, G. J., Bean, R. W., Jones, L. and Zhu, J. X. (2005). Using mixture models to detect differentially expressed genes. Australian Journal Of Experimental Agriculture, 45 (7-8), 859-866. doi: 10.1071/EA05051
Bean, R and McLachlan, G (2005). Cluster analysis of high-dimensional data: A case study. Intelligent Data Engineering And Automated Learning Ideal 2005, Proceedings, 3578 (-), 302-310.
Hand, DJ, Glasbey, C, Husmeier, D, Gower, JC, van Houwelingen, HC, Bugrien, JB, Nason, G, Critchley, F, Hoff, PD, McLachlan, GJ and Bean, RW (2004). Clustering objects on subsets of attributes - Discussion. Journal of The Royal Statistical Society Series B-statistical Methodology, 66 (4), 839-849.
Bean, Richard and Mahmoodian, E. S. (2003). A new bound on the size of the largest critical set in a Latin square. Discrete Mathematics, 267 (1-3), 13-21. doi: 10.1016/S0012-365X(02)00599-X
McLachlan, G. J., Peel, D. and Bean, R. W. (2003). Modelling High-Dimensional Data by Mixtures of Factor Analyzers. Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, 41 (3-4), 379-388. doi: 10.1016/S0167-9473(02)00183-4
Adams, P, Bean, R and Khodkar, A (2003). A census of critical sets in the Latin squares of order at most six. Ars Combinatoria, 68 (1), 203-223.
McLachlan, GJ, Bean, RW and Peel, D (2002). A mixture model-based approach to the clustering of microarray expression data. Bioinformatics, 18 (3), 413-422. doi: 10.1093/bioinformatics/18.3.413
Bean, Richard, Donovan, Diane, Khodkar, Abdollah and Street, Anne Penfold (2002). Steiner trades that give rise to completely decomposable latin interchanges. International Journal of Computer Mathematics, 79 (12), 1273-1284. doi: 10.1080/00207160214654
Adams, P., Bean, R. W. and Khodkar, A. (2001). Disjoint critical sets in Latin squares. Congressus Numerantium, 153, 33-48.
Bean, R. and Donovan, D. M. (2000). Closing a gap in the spectrum of critical sets. Australasian Journal of Combinatorics, 22, 191-200.
Conference Papers
Bean, Richard and Helm, Louie (2025). New records for Playfair solutions. HistoCrypt 2025, Poznań, Poland, 16-18 June 2025. Tartu, Estonia: D-Space at Tartu University Library. doi: 10.58009/aere-perennius0158
Bean, Richard, Gannon, Corinna and Lang, Sarah (2023). The cipher of Emperor Rudolf II’s “Alchemical Hand Bell”. 6th International Conference on Historical Cryptology HistoCrypt 2023, Munich, Germany, 20 - 22 June 2023. Linköping, Sweden: Linköping University Electronic Press. doi: 10.3384/ecp195690
Bean, Richard (2022). Forecasting and optimizing a microgrid for the IEEE-CIS technical challenge. 32nd Australasian Universities Power Engineering Conference (AUPEC), Adelaide, SA Australia, 26-28 September 2022. Piscataway, NJ United States: IEEE Computer Society. doi: 10.1109/aupec58309.2022.10215542
Bean, Richard, Lang, Sarah and Piorko, Megan (2022). Solving an alchemical cipher in a shared notebook of John and Arthur Dee. International Conference on Historical Cryptology HistoCrypt, Amsterdam, Netherland, 20-22 June 2022. Linköping, Sweden: Linköping University Electronic Press. doi: 10.3384/ecp188388
Balson, Alexander, Bean, Richard, Chapman, Archie C., Snow, Stephen, Viller, Stephen, Horrocks, Neil and Glencross, Mashhuda (2022). On-demand batteries as a peer-to-peer service. IEEE PES Innovative Smart Grid Technologies - Asia (ISGT Asia) Conference, Brisbane QLD Australia, 5-8 December 2021. Piscataway, NJ USA: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. doi: 10.1109/ISGTASIA49270.2021.9715657
Bean, Richard (2021). Cryptodiagnosis of “Kryptos K4”. International Conference on Historical Cryptology, Amsterdam, Netherlands, 20-22 June 2022. Linköping, Sweden: Linköping University Electronic Press. doi: 10.3384/ecp183153
Bean, Richard (2020). The use of Project Gutenberg and hexagram statistics to help solve famous unsolved ciphers. 3rd International Conference on Historical Cryptology HistoCrypt 2020, Budapest, Hungary, 15-17 June 2020. Linköping, Sweden: Linköping University Electronic Press. doi: 10.3384/ecp2020171005
Bean, Richard and Vanderwaal, Ben (2011). Calculation of minimum reserve levels for the Australian national electricity market. 17th Power Systems Computation Conference, Stockholm, Sweden, 22-26 August 2011. Red Hook, NY, United States: Curran Associates.
McLaren, C. E., Gordeuk, V. R., Chen, W. P., Barton, J. C., Acton, R. T., Speechley, M., Castro, O., Adams, P. C., Snively, B. M., Harris, E. L., Reboussin, D. M., McLachlan, G. J., Bean, R. and McLaren, G. D. (2007). Subpopulations with iron deficiency, liver disease, or HFE mutations revealed by statistical mixture modeling of transferrin saturation and serum ferritin concentration in Asians, African American, Hispanics, and Whites. 49th Annual Meeting of the American Society of Hematology, Atlanta, GA, U.S.A., 8 - 11 December 2007. Washington, DC, U.S.A.: American Society of Hematology.
Ng, S K, McLachlan, G J, Bean, R W and NG, SW (2006). Clustering replicated microarray data in mixtures of random effects models for varius covariance structures. 2006 Workshop on Intelligent Systems for Bioinformatics (WISB, Hobart, Australia, 4 December 2006. Sydney: The Australian Computer Society.
Basford, Kaye, McLachlan, Geoff and Bean, Richard (2006). Issues of robustness and high dimensionality in cluster analysis. 17th Symposium on Computational Statistics (COMSTAT 2006), Rome, Italy, 28 August - 1 September 2006. Rome, Italy: Physica-Verlag. doi: 10.1007/978-3-7908-1709-6_1
Jones, LBT, Bean, R, McLachlan, G and Zhu, J (2005). Application of mixture models to detect differentially expressed genes. Berlin: Springer-Verlag Berlin. doi: 10.1007/11508069_55
Bean, R., Donovan, D. M., Khodkar, A. and Street, A. P. (2000). Steiner trades that give rise to completely decomposable latin interchanges. Eleventh Australasian Workshop on Combinatorial Algorithms, Hunter Valley, NSW, Australia, 20th July - 1st August 2000. Newcastle, Australia: The University of Newcastle.
Research Report
Scott Lieske, Buning, Richard, Pyrohova, Svitlana, Bean, Richard and Jindalucksawong, Purit (2024). E-scooter movement data analysis; Exploring use of active transport facilities, travel speeds, helmet use, and scooter types. Brisbane, QLD, Australia: The University of Queensland.
Thesis
Bean, Richard Winston (2001). Critical sets in Latin squares and associated structures. PhD Thesis, School of Physical Sciences, The University of Queensland. doi: 10.14264/uql.2016.77
Newspaper Articles
Buning, Richard J., Lieske, Scott and Bean, Richard (2025, 08 13). Most e-scooter riders follow the rules—here’s what we found ZagDaily
Bean, Richard, Pojani, Dorina and Corcoran, Jonathan (2024, 06 05). Bad weather, hills and the dark deter cyclists, particularly women. So what can we do about it? The Conversation
Bean, Richard, Gannon, Corinna and Lang, Sarah (2023, 06 07). Seven metals, ringed with four magical inscriptions: what other secrets does the ‘Alchemical Hand Bell’ hold? The Conversation
Bean, Richard and Horrocks, Neil (2022, 12 20). How closely monitoring households’ energy data can unleash their solar outputs and (possibly) make them more money The Conversation
Bean, Richard, Piorko, Megan and Lang, Sarah (2021, 10 13). Deciphering the Philosophers’ Stone: how we cracked a 400-year-old alchemical cipher The Conversation
Bean, Richard, Pojani, Dorina and Corcoran, Jonathan (2021, 10 06). We analysed 100 million bike trips to reveal where in the world cyclists are most likely to brave rain and cold The Conversation
Bean, Richard (2021, 05 31). Declassified Cold War code-breaking manual has lessons for solving ‘impossible’ puzzles The Conversation 1-1.
Bean, Richard , Weierud, Frode and Lasry, George (2020, 07 14). We decrypted messages from the Biafran war that have remained secret for 50 years The Conversation 1-1.
Bean, Richard (2019, 08 29). Cryptology from the crypt: how I cracked a 70-year-old coded message from beyond the grave The Conversation
Mateo-Babiano, Iderlina, Pojani, Dorina, Corcoran, Jonathan and Bean, Richard (2017, 12 22). Here’s what bike-sharing programs need to succeed The Conversation
Data Collections
Bean, Richard, Pojani, Dorina and Corcoran, Jonathan (2024). Natural barriers facing female cyclists and how to overcome them: a cross national examination of bikesharing schemes. Mendeley Data. (Dataset) doi: 10.17632/vmy42hywwx.1
Bean, Richard , Pojani, Dorina and Corcoran, Jonathan (2021). How does weather affect bikeshare use? A comparative analysis of forty cities across climate zones. Mendeley Data. (Dataset) doi: 10.17632/2nxpvtz935.2
Bean, Richard, Snow, Stephen, Glencross, Mashhuda, Viller, Stephen and Horrocks, Neil (2020). Keeping the power on to home medical devices. The University of Queensland. (Dataset) doi: 10.14264/uql.2020.802