Victoria Hemming

Victoria supports groups to navigate complex problems involving multiple values, uncertainty, and difficult choices. She is particularly adept at designing evidence-based expert elicitation processes to inform decisions when other data are unavailable or uninformative.

Victoria has 14 years of applied and postgraduate experience at the intersection of natural resource management, structured decision making, risk analysis, and impact assessment. She has supported processes in Australia, Canada, and the USA, spanning species and ecosystem conservation, carbon sequestration, biosecurity, wildfire, Defense procurement, and the reproducibility crisis. Victoria’s approach centers on empowering diverse perspectives, fostering curiosity, building effective dialogue, and employing evidence-based techniques, to improve decision quality. She is passionate about advancing the effectiveness, application, and inclusivity of decision science methods. Her research on these topics has been extensively cited and awarded, including the Wiley top-downloaded author for An Introduction to Decision Science for Conservation, and the 2020 University of Melbourne’s Chancellor’s prize for her PhD on expert elicitation techniques for ecological problems.

Victoria completed a PhD at the University of Melbourne, Australia, advancing expert elicitation methods, and pursued a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of British Columbia, advancing decision science methods. Victoria remains an Honorary Research Associate at the Martin Conservation Decisions Lab, at The University of British Columbia.

How did you come to work at Compass?

It’s a long story involving passion for structured decision making, admiration for the work done by Compass Resource Management, a series of serendipitous events, and a few leaps of faith.

What’s the best thing a client has ever said to you?

“I was skeptical, but after going through the process, I wish we used this more often”.

Describe why you do what you do?

I love a good problem and enjoy helping decision makers and groups to inform their decisions. I particularly enjoy the insights that arise, and the improved dialogue and shared understanding that emerge between people of differing perspectives.

What’s something most people don’t know about you?

My right hand is scarred from a penguin attack.

Describe what you do in 5 words or less

Improve insight and decision quality.

What was your first job?

I worked at an outdoor maze stenciling tattoos, preparing billy-tea and damper (an Australian thing), and managing the animal farm.

What’s something you’ll never try again?

An anti-gravity ride.

What truly blows your mind?

Nature, and many of the events it colours our life with (e.g., how on earth do salmon find their way back to the same stream…?).