‘Team Phoenix' soars as Trinity researchers win Air Quality Data Hack 2023 Event

Posted on: 06 March 2023

Six researchers from Trinity’s Schools of Engineering and Computer Science and Statistics scooped the top prize of €1500 as winners of the recent Air Quality Data Hack 2023 Event.

‘Team Phoenix' soars as Trinity researchers win Air Quality Data Hack 2023 Event

Over 100 participants, and a highly competitive 20 teams, aimed to develop innovative ideas, solutions, prototypes or proof of concepts to unlock the potential of granular and hyperlocal city air quality data for Dublin City.

This was thanks to the collaboration between Google and Dublin City Council as part of Project Air View Dublin, which kitted out Google's first electric Street View car with Aclima’s mobile air sensing platform drove through the roads of Dublin City measuring street by street air quality and collected more than 50 million measurements of data.

The hackathon brought ‘Team Phoenix’ together to transform a creative idea for how to use this data and produce population vulnerability maps as a means of targeting strategies for improved air quality.

Two of the winning researchers make their presentation at the competition.

It was a fantastic event organised through Smart Dublin and the team thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to participate, and the experience gained. It showed what Trinity researchers can do with less than 48 hours, a lot of data, and great teamwork. 

The prize was sponsored by the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform (DPER) as part of the Open Data Engagement Fund.

Team Phoenix Details

Mr Kiran Apsunde is a PhD student in the Department of Civil, Structural & Environmental Engineering. Kiran is supervised by Asst Prof John Gallagher & Prof Brian Broderick. Kiran’s research and PhD funding is through the Horizon 2020 GoGreenRoutes project (grant agreement no. 869764).

Ms Mengyi Jin is a visiting PhD student to the Department of Civil, Structural & Environmental Engineering and is from Jiao Tong University in Shanghai. She is working under the supervision of Asst Prof John Gallagher. She has been the holder of a Visiting PhD student Award to Trinity from the China Scholarship Council.

Mr Yuxuan Guo is a PhD student in the Department of Civil, Structural & Environmental Engineering. Kiran is supervised by Assoc Prof Brian Caulfield, Prof Margaret O’Mahony & Asst Prof John Gallagher. Yuxuan’s research and PhD funding is through the EPA STATION-AIR project.

Mr Shanmuga Priyan R. is a PhD student in the Department of Civil, Structural & Environmental Engineering. Kiran is supervised by Asst Prof John Gallagher, Prof Aonghus McNabola & Prof Brian Broderick. Shanmuga’s research and PhD funding is through the EPA STATION-AIR project.

Mr Davide Serroa is in his 5th and final year of his Master’s in civil engineering in the Department of Civil, Structural & Environmental Engineering. He is completing his final year project on machine learning applications for analysing air pollution data.

Dr Mei Wu, a visiting Research Fellow working with Prof. Gregory O’Hare in the School of Computer Science & Statistics and ADAPT centre. Dr Wu is the holder of a Research Fellowship the China Scholarship Council. In China, she is an Associate Professor in the School of Computer Science and Engineering, Wuhan Institute of Technology, Wuhan.