An Interview with Dr Daisy Thomas
Dr Daisy Thomas works for 3DATX Corporation as their Lead Automotive Research Engineer. Daisy has over 5 years’ experience in automotive emissions research, with a Ph.D. in engineering that focused on real-world emissions from hybrid vehicles and the impact of biofuels, from the University of Leeds, UK. Her research has explored climate solutions in the transportation industry that work alongside air quality objectives.
Ed Wilson from COP26andbeyond caught up with Daisy to ask her about her work before she joins our panel of speakers at our upcoming event: Engineering for the Energy Transition.
4th March. 2-4pm GMT. Register HERE.
Hi Daisy, thank you for talking to us. I wanted to start with how you got to where you are now. After studying Physics at the University of Leeds for your Undergraduate degree, how did you end up becoming an engineer?
“I finished my undergrad in Physics and started looking for jobs initially, and I realised that all of the jobs that I wanted to apply for were actually more engineering rather than pure science-based jobs, so at that point I thought that I’d made a massive mistake in my choice of undergraduate degree!
But I was also considering PhDs at the same time and I found one that was funded by the UK Physical Sciences Research Council at the University of Leeds within the Faculty of Engineering but open to all STEM subjects. Through that, I got an Engineering Masters and an Engineering PhD, and one of the best things about it was that I was able to go and present at lots of conferences where I got to meet more people in the industry. That was actually how ended up in my current job, I met the CEO of 3DATX at one of the conferences I presented at and from there, began building up a professional relationship with the company.”
What are some of the engineering challenges you are working on at the moment with 3DATX?
“3DATX are an American company that make Portable Emissions Measurement Systems (PEMS) equipment, we are looking to use the equipment for Periodic Technical Inspections (PTIs), which are like the UK’s MOTs, in order to make sure the vehicles that are the biggest polluters are captured and action can be taken on them.”
“We are hoping to be of use to the PTI market in the EU, who are thinking of updating their testing to be a more comprehensive emissions test. Currently they check Petrol vehicles for CO emissions and Diesel for the smoke opacity in the exhaust, which isn’t very representative of what’s called the Particle Number – the value that scientists think is the greatest danger to human health in car emissions. So the EU are looking to make these periodic tests more substantial. At 3DATX we are working on manufacturing mini PEMs that would be good equipment to use for the new tests as they are simple to use and lightweight, so they can be used transported from vehicle to vehicle for quick testing.”
“For the Real Driving Emissions Type Approval test, the equipment is roughly 50kgs and takes up a whole boot of a car so would not be suitable for PTI testing. We are making more suitable equipment, so could encounter engineering challenges in terms of ramping up our production but also in terms of improving the software to make it more user friendly for mechanics in garages to be able to use it without much training. At the moment we have trials in Sweden where they are sending us data on around 4 vehicles a day and we are using this data to find out more about the trends in testing, but this will be an exciting data processing and analysis challenge once the numbers ramp up further.”
How important will monitoring Petrol & Diesel car emissions be as more and more sold are Electric?
“Old Petrol & Diesel cars will be responsible for a greater proportion of the pollutant emissions that are being produced. Even if new vehicles are electric by 2035 there would still be a large proportion of internal combustion engines on the roads all the way up to 2050”
“It’s quite staggering what small proportion of vehicles are responsible for the worst air pollution, cars that are being produced today are generally very clean but a small number on the roads are magnitudes worse.”
You studied biofuels and hybrid cars during your PhD, with more cars being electric what do you think the future holds for alternative fuel vehicles?
“It would appear to be that for light-duty, electric will be the way that it’s going to go, but I don’t think that you can electrify all types of transport. For the heavy-duty sector, electrification can be more difficult unless it’s possible to do drive-by wire type transportation. In heavy-duty vehicles, I think biofuels would be a good alternative, but perhaps not using first-generation biofuels (like ethanol), but work is being done to improve the production rate of second-generation biofuels (fuels made from waste products) and I think there is good potential there, and there are a lot of people working on that even though it looks like electrification for light-duty will be the way forward. People are trialling biofuels for aircraft as well.”
On a slightly different note, we have three very accomplished women engineers speaking at this event including yourself, have you noticed the work going in to encourage more girls to take up engineering & STEM in general?
“I have seen quite a big drive in this area. There are a lot of Women in Engineering events at the University of Leeds. Looking back to school I think it was always my passion anyway so I don’t think I would have been swayed one way or another but I think people want to encourage it more and more.”
And finally, what would be your advice for young engineers looking to get into automotive engineering seeing as how much the industry is set to change?
“In terms of practical advice, I would try and get some relevant experience. Specifically, in my field, I would say that I have spoken to contacts in the industry who have reassured me that it will be decades before my work in vehicle emissions testing is not relevant anymore. If you always look to broaden your area of expertise you will always be able to move with the times and avoid becoming obsolete, so I would say you should make sure your skillset is as broad as possible so you can adapt to any changes.”
Thank you very much and I look forward to seeing you on our panel on the 4th March!