Cheng Soon Ong is the director of the Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence Future Science Platform (MLAI FSP) at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) and an adjunct Professor at the Australian National University.

The MLAI FSP is dedicated to enabling scientific discovery by harnessing the power of machine learning and artificial intelligence. It employs over 30 postdoctoral researchers and 10 mid-career researchers who work in cross disciplinary teams to achieve the aims and objectives of MLAI FSP. Among them is a team working on problems in digital agriculture and host pathogen responses, which uses genotype to phenotype models. Another team builds deep learning models of DNA sequences and develops MLAI models for designing gene regulation sequences. These designs are then biologically verified using synthetic biology in bacteria.

Additionally, Ong has had extensive experience in extending machine learning approaches for problems in computational biology, and is currently developing active learning, bandits, choice theory and adaptive experimental design methods.