Kirk Martinez, Professor of Electronics and Computer Science at the University of Southampton has been selected by the American Geophysical Union (AGU) Honors Program in recognition of his internationally acclaimed work on environmental sensor networks.

He will deliver the Leptoukh Lecture keynote at the AGU’s annual conference in New Orleans this December.

Kirk has used technology to study the environment in several high profile projects as he established a reputation as a leading expert in Internet of Things sensing research.

Research interests across a 20-year career within Southampton’s Department of Electronics and Computer Science have ranged from observing the hydrological processes of the Cairngorm plateau through to innovating autonomous sub-glacial probes for glaciology research.

The Leptoukh Lecture, which is named after the late Dr Greg Leptoukh from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, is arranged by the AGU’s Earth & Space Sciences Informatics Group and recognises outstanding work being pioneered within the computational and data sciences. “It is wonderful to be recognised by the AGU, which has helped to build this interdisciplinary area into its massive event,â€? he says.

The University of Southampton’s Glacsweb project has been monitoring glacier behaviour under Kirk’s direction as a Principal Investigator since 2003. The programme, which has benefited from five grants ranging from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) to the Leverhulme Trust, has contributed to fundamental research in glaciology and wireless sensor networks.

Glacsweb has been deployed in Norway and Iceland, placing custom sensor probes in, on and under glaciers. In 2016, the team also worked with Formula E in Greenland to deploy a live Iceberg Tracker, which is being further developed for deployment in Iceland this summer. His team also deployed the first environmental sensing system based on modern internet and web standards, in the Cairngorm Mountains of Scotland.

You can find out more about these projects at: glacsweb.org and mountainsensing.org

The University of Southampton is shining a light on future fashions thanks to an innovative collaboration between electronics experts and art school students.

Working with academics from the University’s Electronics and Computer Science (ECS) department, fashion students at Winchester School of Art (WSA) created three light-emitting ‘smart’ textiles – a knitted dress, a printed T-shirt and a woven fabric swatch.

The prototype pieces combined traditional fabrics with electronic elements and were created as part of a public engagement project, with the students using feedback from events such as Southampton Science and Engineering Festival to refine their creations.

Fashion students Elizabeth Brady and Rebecca Moore worked with Dr Yang Wei and Dr Kai Yang, senior research fellows within ECS’s Electronics and Electrical Engineering research group, to create the pieces. The results went on show to staff, students and the public at the WSA degree show recently, and will go on display again at University open days this autumn.

Dr Wei said: “This was a great way of combining expertise from two very different disciplines. The items we created were just prototypes, but this was a very useful exercise for the students, as light-emitting textiles are likely to become an increasingly important element in clothes design in the future.

“There are many other potential applications too, including furnishing, automotive, safety, military and medical.â€?

The light-emitting knitted dress in action Credit: University of Southampton