Mr. Cormac Fay

Cormac Fay graduated from Dublin City University (DCU) with a B. Eng. in Mechantronic Engineering (2005) and a M. Eng. Telecommunications (2007).  He subsequently pursued a an internship within the Adaptive Information Cluster (AIC) in 2007 within Prof. Dermot Diamond’s group before progressing towards a research assistant position in the AIC and soon afterwards with CLARITY.

Equipped with a multidisciplinary background, Cormac continually acts as an intermediary between many different research areas including; chemistry, physics, electronics, mechanics, sports science, database management and computer science.  Consequently, he has been a primary participant in the design and implementation of many prototyping systems such as; Phosphate System, Smart Landfill, Smart Pant, Environmental Pressure Sense (Env-PreSense), Smart Dust, Biotex, Proetex, Wireless ISE Sensor Platform (WISESP), WANDA, Ultra Low Cost Low Power PEDD detection devices etc.  Many of these projects required involvement with other institutes including; IBM, Intel, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Office of Environmental Enforcement (OEE), Episensor, LYIT/WiSAR, Intelligent Polymer Research Institute (IPRI) and many other collaborators in European Framework Programs (FP6/FP7).

The focus of his current research is on the WANDA project which offers a radically new environmental monitoring technique.  Current autonomous monitoring methods – involving the creation of individual platforms capable of performing complex analytical measurements – continue to require individual power units, communication devices, electro-chemical transducers and regular maintenance visits.  In contrast, WANDA offers a more cost effective approach using low cost satellite chemo-indicator stations equipped with integrated colorimetric sensing materials for various target contaminants.

Since 2008, his work has appeared in news articles, environmental reports, international conferences and peer reviewed publications.  In his spare time Cormac has no life, he spends 4 hours per day travelling to and from DCU (~1 day per week).  On weekends his tendency is to continue to work as part of his brothers businesses’ and has a ‘side job’ as a computer technician.  Where possible, he attempts to squeeze in an hour or two of sleep.