News IRIS Conference 2023 28.06.2023

On Tuesday, 20 students went to present their research to the IRIS Conference at Friends House in London, as part of our G&L Futures Live Projects Initiative.  Following up on some preliminary work last year, the team examined how weather and traffic affected daily air pollution (specifically NOx) levels in London, while other groups investigated links with pollution and borough population or wages.  The final group, using data from the US, looked for connections between types of air pollution and lung cancer rates.  

Beginning work in September, these students have been developing the skills necessary to create and explore their own research questions, to access and analyse large sets of data needed to answer these questions, and at the conference, to communicate their methodology and results.  They were able to discuss their work alongside fellow students from other schools, as well as academics and scientists from the Natural History Museum, Google’s Deep Mind team, and Professor Alan Barr from CERN and Oxford.  

Inspired by the work they saw, they are keen to continue next year – perhaps turning their skills towards analysing data from the Spitzer Telescope or from CERN’s Atlas Project investigating the Higgs Boson.