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Professor John Delaney speaks at Environmental symposium
MESTECH this week hosted an event entitled "Our Environmental Economy: Challenges and opportunities, global and local perspectives". This three-day held in the Helix at DCU, event was planned to highlight the Marine and Environmental Sensing Technology Hub research.
The areas of environmental monitoring, challenges within the industrial sector in engaging in research, and state of the art research from world class centres in the United States and Canada were featured. The event was planned around the visit of Professor John Delaney, University of Washington, a DCU Invited Visitor 2011. Professor Delaney gave a presentation, 'Understanding the planetary life support system: Next generation science in the ocean basins', which delighted the audience of undergraduate students, graduate students, academics and visitors from outside DCU.
John W Devitt, Georgia Technical Research Institute, USA spoke about 'Marine Monitoring Technology for Gulf of Mexico', and Randy Gillespie, Memorial University St. John's Newfoundland, Canada spoke on 'Mapping and monitoring our oceans: the role of sensors'. This was followed by MESTECHs first sensors workshop, 'Sensing - changing the way we live our lives', taken up by 10 external visitors, who learned about how sensors are designed, deployed and managed in the environment. Discussions with our colleagues from The US and Canada this week will lead to some new research opportunities in the coming year.
Professor Delaney, in his time with MESTECH this week, discussed plans to work together on developing some educational resources to inform our future scientists about the vast resources of our oceans. He also gave an inspiring TEDx Dublin talk that will soon be available for all to see via the internet. The three-day event finished with an Industry breakfast at DCU. The aim of this event was to invite industries to form part of the research advisory board of MESTECH and help drive research of the hub over the coming years. This industry meeting saw 16 industries with interest in environmental monitoring engage in discussions about the challenges of working with academic researchers and the many benefits of these collaborations. The vision provided by Professor John Delaney in his research on ocean observatories left us with a hopeful optimism of where we can go with technology in the future and the benefits that will be gained from it.