Combating climate change requires a massive scale-up of renewable energy usage in our lives. The goal of this project is to use data visualization to help local and regional stakeholders improve the adoption of renewable energy in transportation and other fields. In particular, the project will adapt an existing digital twin geospatial framework to a portion of the city of Chicago. A digital twin of a city is a digital model that represents buildings and other infrastructure objects and entities in the city. It can be used to digitally simulate different activities and determine the impacts of urban planning strategies.
The project is a cooperation between four different universities. In addition to programming experience, student participants in the project will be exposed to different ideas ranging from environmental protection and climate change impacts to cybersecurity. They will be mentored by and collaborate in active research with a diverse team of faculty members.
The students’ specific duties will include: program or adapt existing JavaScript GUIs to identify/read and visualize data streams inside a browser, identify data sources, and participate in research activities with faculty.
Strong candidates will have an excellent background in programming. This ongoing project is available only to junior and senior students, with a GPA of at least 3.2. Due to the multidisciplinary nature of the project, students across majors are accepted. The hourly rate is $15 -- the time commitment depends on the interest and abilities, but will likely not exceed 10 hours/week.
Additional desired skills include:
● previous experience in JavaScript programming and/or systems programming (e.g., Unix, command line, Python, virtualization),
● experience with geospatial frameworks.
To express interest and for any questions, please send an email with a description of your skills and interests to Melkior Ornik at mornik@illinois.edu.
