IRUSE - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Department of Civil Engineering
- Projects
Adeleh has received her B.Sc. and M.Sc. in Electrical Engineering-Control Systems at Amirkabir University of Technology (Tehran Polytechnic) and graduated with honors in 2009, 2011 respectively. She moved to Europe in 2012 and continued her career as a researcher in control systems, simulation, design and applying the control methods in real life applications, e.g.: process control industry. She performed research in the area of Robust Model Predictive Control in KULeuven, Belgium in cooperation with process control industry company IPCOS and participated in several workshops, and conferences in optimization, optimal and model predictive control in Europe.
She joined the Department of Civil Engineering of the University of Galway in 2016 to work under the supervision of Dr. Marcus Keane (IRUSE). Her research aims at improving energy efficiency and optimizing energy consumption in District Cooling Systems(DCS) based on the real-life implementation of optimal and model predictive control on developed Modelica models. This research looks closely at the generation system of DCS mainly chillers and cooling towers since these units are the main consumers of energy in DCS generation. The proposed control strategies are applied on real-life applications of INDIGO projects to demonstrate the effectiveness of the models and control methods.
Research interests
Optimal control, model predictive control (MPC);
optimization methods and their applications;
robust control design;
energy efficiency, energy systems, renewable energies;
process control applications.
Job Titles:
- Department of Civil Engineering
Alessandro Piccinini is a graduate of Università Politecnica delle Marche (Ancona, Italy) where he obtained a Master of Building Engineering (summa cum laude) with the thesis "Design and simulation of thermal control system for a large public building".
Between March 2017 and August 2017, he attended the Erasmus Plus program in Galway at the National University of Ireland and in September 2017 he was granted a postgraduate IRCSET EPS Scholarship award cofounded by the Italian company R2M S.p.A, becoming a Ph.D. candidate within the IRUSE group in the Department of Civil Engineering at NUI Galway under the supervision of Dr. Marcus Keane and Dr. Raymond Sterling.
His proposed research aims to change the typical approach for evaluating deep renovation opportunities by means of knowledge-based techniques (e.g. reduced order model (ROM) and machine learning) and how these can then tackle barriers to deep renovation by supporting quality assurance, compliance, voluntary certification schemes and financing schemes.
Research interests
Building Performance and Optimization Analysis;
whole building energy simulation (WBES);
modelling and simulation of thermal comfort.
Dayanne Peretti holds a BSc in Electrical Engineering from Universidade Positivo (Curitiba, Brazil). Her first contact with research programs was in 2011 when she won a scholarship by Fundação Araucária for supporting scientific and technological development. Right after this experience, she worked over the following three years in two companies from different sectors, public and private ones. These experiences were related to energy projects for commercial and industrial buildings.
In 2014 she started to work on the industrial sector. Her first experience was in a financial team supporting engineering projects analysis for government and internal reports. After that she worked in two industrial companies focused in smart grid and renewable energy management, where for 5 years she developed projects related to product management.
She moved to Ireland in 2019 and worked as a research assistant for 6 months at the University of Galway. In 2020 she won a PhD scholarship in the Department of Civil Engineering at University of Galway under the supervision of Dr. Marcus Keane and Dr. Federico Seri (IRUSE) studying Measurement and Verification applied to Smart Grid residential demand response projects.
Desirée Arias holds a BSc and MSc degree in Computer Engineering, specialising in Big Data, from the University of Valladolid, Spain (2018). During her Master's Degree, she obtained six first honours in subjects including "Advance applications and services on the Internet", "Systems of capturing and visualising images", "Parallel computing", "Scalable techniques for Data Analysis" and "Advanced methods in reasoning and representation of knowledge". Her Master's thesis is titled "Health monitoring of a TriGen plant: a Big Data proposal" and studied the possibility of applying data-based techniques to look for real-time anomalies analysing the data of continuous systems, focused on the analysis and study of energy efficiency in buildings and factories.
She is specialised in the development and application of machine learning and data mining techniques in Big Data projects. She is currently undertaking a PhD in Civil engineering at NUIG with the topic: "Cloud-based platform and toolkit for building life-cycle optimisation for residential and tertiary buildings". The project is funded by the College of Engineering and Informatics and the H2020 project, named SPHERE BIM Digital Twin Platform, in which she is collaborating within the IRUSE group.
Research interests
Machine Learning and Big Data applications
Data analysis
Business analysis of software
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board
- Vice - President and 2 Nd Affiliate Representative
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board
- President and Affiliate Representative
Job Titles:
- Member of the Previous
- Department of Civil Engineering / NUI Galway
Federico Seri is a graduate of Università Politecnica delle Marche (UNIVPM), Italy, where he obtained a Master of Thermo-mechanical Engineering. The topic of his dissertation was "Development of a method based on genetic algorithms to predict and control indoor air temperature and humidity in large spaces". In 2015, he pursued and was awarded a PhD and the title of "Doctor Europaeus" in Mechanical and Management Engineering at Università Politecnica delle Marche (UNIVPM). The PhD studies were part of the FP7 European project SportE 2, under the supervision of Professor Gian Marco Revel at Università Politecnica delle Marche. PhD studies focused on development and implementation of methodologies to support smart metering systems optimizing comfort and energy monitoring in buildings. PhD thesis title: "Development of a methodology for the optimal sensor placement to optimize air temperature monitoring in large spaces".
From 2015 to 2017, Federico was working as junior postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Industrial Engineering and Mathematical Sciences (DIISM) at Università Politecnica delle Marche (UNIVPM), Ancona (Italy). Federico was involved in a H2020 European project NewTREND and technology scouting activity for leading companies in the curtain walling sector.
Currently, Federico is a senior postdoctoral researcher and adjunct lecturer in the College of Engineering and Informatics at University of Galway. Federico is involved in a number of research projects, including H2020 European project RESPOND, studying demand response for residential buildings, H2020 European project REACT, researching the potential of large-scale deployment of RES and storage assets on geographical islands.
Research interests
Building Simulation Modelling, Optimisation and Calibration
Building Management Systems
Thermal comfort
Energy efficient technologies and building auditing
Demand Response
Job Titles:
- Project Manager of the EU Funded FP7 Waternomics Research Project
- Role of Associate With Roughan & O'Donovan Consulting Engineers
Dr. Louise Hannon is a graduate of Civil Engineering at Trinity College Dublin, she has a strong background Civil Engineering Design and Project Management having worked in a Civil Engineering Consultancy for many years. During this time, Louise was principally involved in the design of some of Ireland's major road and drainage infrastructure projects.
In 2001, Louise was appointed to the role of Associate with Roughan & O'Donovan Consulting Engineers and in 2008, opened and managed the company's Galway Office.
Louise joined NUIG in 2013, undertaking a Research Masters in the area of water and working as a Research Engineer as part of an Enterprise Ireland funded research project concerned with the remote operational monitoring of water treatment facilities.
In early 2015, Louise was appointed as Project Manager of the EU Funded FP7 Waternomics Research Project. She completed a Masters in Engineering Science by Research in 2016 on the subject of Operational Testing at Wastewater Treatment Facilities.
In January 2017, the Waternomics Research Project was successfully accepted by the commission with the highest commendation. Concurrent to the Waternomics Project, Louise began work, in 2016, on the EU H2020 funded Project INNOQUA. Louise project manages and progresses NUIG's extensive commitments in the project. Louise is currently undertaking a professional diploma in Project Management with the Institute of Project Management.
Her research interests span a variety of areas related to water management, wastewater management and transportation with particular interest in impacting human behaviour to better resource management.
Job Titles:
- Researcher
- Secretary of the Board
Magdalena Hajdukiewicz is a graduate of Wrocław University of Science and Technology where she obtained a Masters of Civil Engineering. She completed her PhD, as part of the NEMBES project (2009-2013), under the supervision of Dr. Marcus Keane at NUI Galway. The topic of her PhD thesis was 'Formal calibration methodology relating to computational fluid dynamics models of naturally ventilated internal environments'.
Since 2013, Magdalena has worked as a researcher and an adjunct lecturer in Engineering at NUI Galway. She worked on a number of national and international research projects including Irish Research Council Enterprise Partnership Scheme with Oran Pre-Cast; EU Horizon 2020 projects such as Built2Spec, Hit2Gap and Geofit; Science Foundation Ireland nZEB-RETROFIT project; 'Aerodynamic optimisation of cycling in para-sports' PhD project (in collaboration with TU/e); and Science Foundation Ireland Industry Fellowship with Tobin Consulting Engineers. Currently, Magdalena is a research fellow on a Horizon 2020 METABUILDING Labs project, which strives to unleash the innovation potential of SMEs in the construction sector. As a recognition of her research work, in 2018 Magdalena received the Civil Engineering Research Association of Ireland Young Researcher Award.
As an adjunct lecturer, Magdalena has taught in a number of undergraduate/postgraduate modules in Engineering, and co-supervised/mentored 3 PhD, 2 MEng, 11 ME/MSc/BE, and 15 internship students. She is a research staff representative on NUI Galway Research Committee. Furthermore, Magdalena is very active in outreach activities, including promotion of engineering through workshops, seminars, open days, school visits, media articles and Engineers Week activities.
Research interests
Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD)
CFD modelling of built environment
Control optimisation of energy efficient buildings
Sustainability in buildings
Nearly zero-energy buildings
Thermal comfort in buildings
Structural and environmental building performance monitoring
Quality inspections during construction processes
Cycling aerodynamics (CFD and wind tunnel testing)
Job Titles:
- Informatics Research Unit for Sustainable Engineering / National University of Ireland Galway
- Member of Committee
Dr. Marcus Keane has extensive knowledge and experience in the development of integrated Building Information Models (BIM) that encapsulate the processes and data associated with holistic environmental & energy management in buildings and industrial processes. Dr. Keane founded the Informatics Research Unit for Sustainable Engineering (IRUSE) at University College Cork in 2000 and expanded IRUSE to be a dually affiliated research unit with NUI Galway following Dr. Keane's transfer in 2007. IRUSE has developed BIM's for a number of buildings both in Ireland and the US through collaborations with our partners in Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) at the University of California at Berkeley. The buildings of most significance include the New Engineering Building, An Spóirt Ionad, and The Nursing Library at NUI Galway and the Environmental Research Institute (ERI) at UCC. The BIM models developed by IRUSE are built around a formally designed integrated data model based on the IFC data schema which is now and ISO standard for interoperability in the AEC industry. IRUSE has extensive experience of other software/hardware applications/systems that are used to populate the BIM such as 3-D CAD modelling software, whole building and reduced order energy simulation software, and industry standard wired and wireless Building Management and Automation Systems (BMS/BAS).
Dr. Keane is the lead PI in the Enterprise Ireland BuildWise Project, Scientific Director of the Science Foundation Ireland ITOBO Strategic Research Cluster, PI on the HEA PRTL4 NEMBES project, PI on the recently established Enterprise Ireland I2E2 Energy Competence Centre (Appropriate Working Environments, HVAC modelling). Dr. Keane has published over 100 scientific papers and secured in excess of ‚¬2.5 million in research grants in 2007-2010. IRUSE industrial partners include Intel Ireland, IBM, Hewlett Packard, DePuy, Johnson & Johnson, Boston Scientific, D'Appolonia Spa, Arup, RPS Consulting and Irish SME's that include Cylon Controls Ltd., Enerit, Wirelite, Vector FM, EI Electronics... Academic Collaborators include: Tyndall National Institute, University College Cork, Trinity College Dublin, University College Dublin, Cork Institute of Technology, Fraunhofer Institute ISE (Freiburg).
Research interests
Building Information Modelling;
Building Energy Simulation;
Building Management Systems;
Energy efficient technologies and building auditing.
Job Titles:
- Project Manager Global Facilities & Real Estate
Noel Finnerty is a graduate of the University of Limerick, where he obtained a first class honours B.E. (Mech). He has a strong background in Facilities, Real Estate and Project Management having worked in the Electronics and Medical Device industry for several years. His current role in Boston Scientific includes leading a Global team to develop an Energy Management system for the corporation. He is currently pursuing further study under the supervision of Dr. Marcus Keane and Dr Dan Coakley.
Research interests
Global Energy Management systems;
building energy performance optimisation.
Dr. Paulo Lissa is a graduate of Positivo University (Curitiba - PR, Brazil) where he obtained a Bachelor of Electrical Engineering degree, where he was awarded 2nd place in the event "Best Graduation Project - Electrical Engineering". He also holds a postgraduate professional degree in Industrial Engineering from the same institution. With almost 10 years of work experience, he was exposed to very interesting and relevant technologies from different domains: GVT (telecommunication), Positivo University (research and project development), Toshiba (energy transmission and distribution) and Landis+Gyr (smart grid solutions).
In 2017 he was offered a scholarship from the NUI Galway and started his PhD at the School of Computer Science. Later that year he joined the IRUSE group, working on the RESPOND project. His research is focused on the application of Artificial Intelligence for Energy Management and Demand Response smart control.
Research interests
Machine Learning.
Reinforcement Learning.
Smart grid.
Demand Response.
Energy efficiency.
Job Titles:
- Lecturer of Energy Systems Engineering in Mechanical Engineering
Rory Monaghan is the Lecturer of Energy Systems Engineering in Mechanical Engineering and Director of the Energy Systems Engineering degree programme at NUI Galway. His research interests include modelling and simulation of thermal-fluid systems, including combustion, gasification, building energy performance, and renewable energy generation.
He was a Post-Doctoral Researcher in the Combustion Chemistry Centre at NUIG, where his research focused on reduced-order modelling for emission prediction for gas turbines. He received Masters and PhD degrees in Mechanical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 2005 and 2010, respectively.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Board
- Acting Secretary November 2015 - June 2016 )
Job Titles:
- Department of Civil Engineering
Letizia D'Angelo, holds a BSc and MSc degree in Building Engineering from Università Politecnica delle Marche (Ancona, Italy) and achieved a high first-class honour with the thesis "Assessment of energy renovation actions to support operation and maintenance of public buildings". After her degree, in 2017, she completed a successful 5-month traineeship program of the European Commission (Erasmus Plus) in the National University of Ireland. In the same year, she won a PhD scholarship in the Department of Civil Engineering at NUI Galway under the supervision of Dr. Marcus Keane and Dr. Raymond Sterling (IRUSE).
Her proposed research aims at combining energy efficiency and optimizing energy consumption in existing building stock and provide a technological solution (based on building information modelling technology) together with best energy efficiency technologies (RES, envelope, HVAC, etc.) to effectively tackling the barriers that prevent the implementation of the EPBD across Europe, especially in achieving near-zero energy buildings.
Research interests
Building Information Modelling (BIM);
energy simulations;
deep and conventional retrofitting and energy efficiency optimisation.
Job Titles:
- Architect
- Department of Civil Engineering
Luis M. Blanes is an Architect (2001) trained at ETSA University of Seville (Seville, Spain) and at IUAV (Venice, Italy). His professional career started in 2001 working as an Architect for Industrial Group Leche Pascual S.A. where he earned a wide understanding of the Design-Procure ment-Construction-Operation cycle acting from the client side perspective. In 2005 he joined engineering group Tecnicas Reunidas S.A. and worked within the Infrastructure and Environmental division. He was responsible for the Construction Management of multiple complex projects, the most remarkable being:
Job Titles:
- Department of Civil Engineering
- Department of Mechanical Engineering
Job Titles:
- Department of Civil Engineering
Paul Moran is a graduate of the Energy Systems Engineering bachelor's degree course in the National University of Ireland, Galway. He specialised in Civil Engineering graduating top of the class with a first class honour. Paul has worked as a civil engineer with RPS Consulting Engineers and Coffey Northumbrian on large civil projects in Ireland.
Paul was awarded funding from the Science Foundation of Ireland (SFI) to pursue further study under the supervision of Dr. Jamie Goggins and Dr. Magdalena Hajdukiewicz. Paul is working on the nZEB-Retrofit project with the overall goal to examine the effectiveness of innovative building structural elements and systems, regarding their structural, environmental and energy performance in retrofitting of existing buildings.
Research interests
Building Skins;
sustainable refurbishment;
life Cycle Engineering.
Job Titles:
- Department of Civil Engineering
Raquel is a graduate of University of Sao Paulo (Sao Carlos/SP, Brazil) where she obtained a BE in Civil Engineering (2016) and a MSc in Hydraulic Engineering and Sanitation (2019). Throughout her undergraduate period, she worked as an undergraduate research assistant for four years. In 2015, she was awarded a one-year exchange scholarship at Michigan State University (East Lansing/MI, USA). In the summer of 2016, she worked as a research assistant on the project "Advancing Microclimate Design in Urban Temperate Climates" at the Illinois Institute of Technology (Chicago/IL, USA). In June 2019 she presented her master dissertation entitled "Economic evaluation of direct filtration technologies applied to water treatment for small populations".
Job Titles:
- Senior Facilities Engineer
Ronan Coffey holds a Batchelor of Science (Engineering) degree in Building Services from Dublin Institute of Technology, and a postgraduate diploma in Environmental Engineering from Trinity College Dublin. He became a Certified Energy Manager in 2009. He has worked for 23 years in construction management, project engineering & design, and facilities engineering roles. He has a strong background in energy project implementation in his 12 years at Boston Scientific - Galway. He is in the first year of his MEng (Research), under the supervision of Dr. Daniel Coakley.
Research interests
Approaches to energy management;
energy reporting and data visualisation;
energy performance measurement.
Job Titles:
- Mechanical Engineer
- Department of Civil Engineering
Sadaf is a qualified Mechanical Engineer by her qualifications and a Building Energy Professional by profession. She holds a B.Tech and M.Tech in Mechanical Engineering from Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi, India. In addition to that she has a one semester certificate course in 'Advance Mechanics and system Design', from University of François Rabelais, Ecole Polytechnic, Tours, France. She is Indian Green Building Council certified Accredited professional(IGBC AP) and has acquired skills to develop work in the fields of Energy Efficient Buildings, Green Building Ratings and Certifications from her early caree stage.
Sheikh Zuhaib is an architect who completed his undergraduate studies (BArch) at Aligarh Muslim University (Aligarh, India) in 2010 and graduate studies (M.Arch) at the Indian Institute of Technology (Roorkee, India) in 2013.
He started his professional career as an architect in 2010 and worked on several residential, commercial and institutional projects of varied nature and scale at different professional organisations in India. During his practice he worked closely with organisations like Peter Ellis and New Cities Ltd., Jaypee Group and AECOM. He received DAAD fellowship for conducting his graduate research at RWTH Aachen University, Germany in 2012 to work on 'Strategic development of energy efficient and comfortable building envelopes'. He is a LEED IGBC Accredited Professional and has acquired skills to work on energy efficient buildings from his early career.
Zuhaib has been awarded a PhD Scholarship by Science Foundation of Ireland to conduct his research on the n-ZEB-Retrofit Project in IRUSE, NUI Galway, under the supervision of Dr. Jamie Goggins, Dr. Marcus Keane and Dr. Magdalena Hajdukiewicz.
Research interests
Building performance analysis and rating systems;
energy efficient façade design and development;
retrofit technologies and techniques;
Whole Building Energy Simulation.
Job Titles:
- Department of Civil Engineering