An innovative cross-faculty project at Yale seeks to gather environmental data using sensors mounted on public and private bicycles.
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Air pollution and heat stress caused by a changing climate are among the most serious environmental threats to public health. However, the lack of granular data concerning their impact within specific urban landscapes continues to hamper efforts to curb their negative impact. A research team led by Yale faculty members from the School of the Environment, the School of Public Health, the Department of Electrical Engineering, and the Department of Computer Science has initiated a project aiming to fill this data gap by deploying sensors for mapping and monitoring air quality and heat stress using public and private bicycles. The sensors are able to measure a wide array of factors, including temperature, humidity, carbon dioxide, ozone, and particulate matter, while tagging the data points with spatial coordinate information.
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The impact of the project is twofold: in addition to solving a pressing issue in terms of data collection, the project is also aiming to contribute to the efforts centered on creating a culture of health in urban environments. Participants in the study become citizen scientists on account of their data collection as they traverse the city landscape, all while improving their physical health from biking. In recognition of the importance of the work and of the unorthodox research methodology, the project has received a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and has been awarded a Leitner Award for Uncommon Collaboration.
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The project has currently expanded to include 16 cities across three continents, and the research team hopes to continue to expand to include additional participants and to be present in more cities across the globe.
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Faculty collaborating on this project include:
- Xuhui Lee (PI), Sara Shallenberger Brown Professor, School of the Environment
- Robert Dubrow, Professor, School of Public Health
- Justin Farrell, Professor, School of the Environment
- Roman Kuc, Professor, Department of Electrical Engineering
- Zhong Shao, Kempner Professor & Chair, Department of Computer Science
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For more information on the project, visit https://biking-for-science.yale.edu/
