Profile

I am a PhD student in NUI, Galway in the School of Physics. I started my PhD in February 2014. My work involves monitoring air and dust in homes. I am particularly interested in finding out what happens to the air quality in peoples’ homes after they replace windows and doors and put more insulation into the walls. By replacing windows and doors and putting in more insulation, you make your house more airtight which can mean that your home may be easier to heat but there may be negative effects, which is what I am looking at.

As part of my research, I will be looking at thermal comfort, this how warm or cold you find a room based on 90% of the population (lots of maths!). I hope to compare thermal comfort with another method call comfort vote, this is of importance as some people like a room to be more cold than others and I would like to see if there is a difference between the two methods.

I also look at how often you open and close windows and vents, this is call occupant behaviour. I want to see if occupants behaviour changes after windows and doors are replaced and more insulation is put in.

Some days I go out to peoples homes (all around the country) and monitor air quality and take dust samples, and then I go back to my lab, analyze the results, clean the equipment, and get ready for the next day of sampling.

In the days where I am not sampling, I am in NUI, Galway, where I am Physics lab demonstrator and tutor in Occupational Hygiene.

I normally meet my Supervisors to give them updates on how I am going and discuss any problems I have had (the last problem was to do with a cable not connecting right, which meant that I couldn’t sample, but don’t worry I got a new one!). In between that there is a lot of sending emails and most importantly coffee!! Once a month, the whole department gets together and we all have coffee and LOTS of cake!!

In the evening I help run the Physics Society. We are organizing the Science Ball, which is one of the biggest balls in my University.  I can’t wait to go!!!