Who we are

The prototype smoke forecasting project is a collaboration between:

CSIRO

Bureau of Meteorology

University of Tasmania

University of Melbourne

University of Sydney

Victorian Department of the Environment, Land, Water and Planning

CSIRO

Lead investigator

Martin has worked in the area of air quality modelling and applications for over 30 years. He has been employed by CSIRO as a Principal Research Scientist for more than 20 years and over this period has contributed to air quality science in Australia. His principal area of research has been into the development of models which describe the sources and formation of biogenic and anthropogenic secondary gases and aerosols in the Australian atmosphere.

Lead Investigator

Fabienne's key roles in the project include engagement and outreach with the stakeholder community, management of the low-cost particle sensor deployment, improving the smoke emissions module in the AQFx system and integration of the SPARK fire spread model into AQFx. She is also interested in developing underpinning modules that target smoke forecasts to specific at-risk industries (e.g., viticulture, apiculture, solar energy, aviation) and using drone platforms, multi-spectral imagery and low cost smoke sensors to improve smoke emissions from the smouldering coarse woody debris.

Lead investigator

Julie is an atmospheric modeller. Her key contributions to the project include dynamic plume rise modelling, outreach and engagement.

Project manager

Principal investigator

Fay leads an interdisciplinary research group at the Menzies Institute for Medical Research that investigates how the environment influences health – particularly air pollution from landscape fires and wood heaters, aero-allergens (such as pollen) and extreme heat. Her team developed and now runs the AirRater smartphone app (https://airrater.org/), which supports individuals to protect their health from smoke pollution, pollen and heat. Fay is contributing to this project by providing advice on the updates to AirRater and how best to engage with key stakeholders, including the health sector.

Principal investigator

Penny joined the AirRater team in 2016 as head of the pollen lab and expanded her role in 2017 to take on the management of the AirRater app and service. She will lead the AirRater upgrades planned as part of this project, in addition to contributing to the AQVx upgrades by ensuring strong connections between the technical aspects of the project and stakeholder outreach.

Principal investigator

Chris has developed a number of online tools and mobile apps for visualising, exploring and capturing environmental and social data. He was the developer for both the AirRater app and AQVx. In this project he is contributing to the AirRater upgrades, advising on the AQVx upgrades, and will support end user training.

Principal investigator

Grant is a landscape and fire ecologist and spatial analyst. He is currently a Research Fellow working with the NSW Bushfire Risk Management Research Hub, developing modelling tools to improve prescribed burn planning. He developed and runs the data systems behind both AirRater and AQVx and will play a key role in this project through his work on the collection, blending and visualisation of observational and modelling data.

Project manager

Megan assists the AirRater team in various aspects of project management including research budgets, research grant applications and participant recruitment. She is supporting the overall delivery of AQVx and AirRater, through project management and communications.

Principal investigator

Jeremy has a background in applied statistics and mathematics, and has worked in air pollution modelling, biostatistics and bioinformatics. He completed his PhD on data assimilation for air pollution models. In this project, Jeremy will be leading the assimilation of satellite and surface observational data to enhance AQFx. Jeremy is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Melbourne Centre for Data Science (at the University of Melbourne).

Principal investigator

Josh is a statistician with a background in environmental epidemiology focused on air pollution in Australia. He previously developed the PM2.5 blending utility in AQVx.

In this project he implementing machine-learning smoke plume detection, creating an online tool for managing the domains of the rapid update cycle, developing an enhanced PM2.5 blending utility, and assisting with data management.