FEC - School of Computing
School of Computing
Image shows Julita & Joseph

Interview with Data Science Students

We spoke with Data Science students, Julita and Joseph, about their Expo project ‘Fog Climatology and Nowcasting at Dublin Airport’. The Final Year Projects Expo is an important annual event for the Faculty of Engineering and Computing here at DCU, allowing students to showcase their talents and high levels of knowledge amidst a large number of employers.

 

Fog Climatology and Nowcasting at Dublin Airport

Met Eireann approached DCU with the request for an improved model for fog prediction.Julita and Joseph used their knowledge from Advanced Machine Learning and Complex Systems modules to carry out this task. With much testing and analyses of fog behaviour and severity, they managed to create a more effective model of predicting fog at short leave times at Dublin Airport, as well as identifying the issues with Met Eireann’s existing model.

Joseph and Julita had the opportunity to work with some professionals from the University of Alcala in Spain who offered valuable insights for their project. Joseph highlighted the frequent communication they maintained with these experts to update them on the progress of their project.

One challenge they experienced in the creation of this project was the rarity of fog. As the model was based on hourly weather observations over the last ten years, Joseph said, “there is not very many fog episodes actually, I think there was around 150 in the data set across the whole 11 years. So if there is only that many examples how well can a machine learning model try to predict fog”.

 

EXPO

Julita and Joseph said that they had multiple discussions with representatives from Intel, IBM, and Ergo. Julita explained that “It was also valuable as it was right before the interviews for the final year project that we had with our supervisor so it was kind of like a test before the actual interviews”. 

It was an interesting experience for Julita and Joseph as they had the chance to discuss the technical aspects of data science with Intel due to their questions regarding Microchains and programming.