IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - June 2019 - 8
BY
LESLIE PRIVES
Hive Mind
©ISTOCKPHOTO/GRAFISSIMO
CREATING A SCIENCE-DRIVEN SOLUTION
TO IMPROVE THE YIELD
OF COMMERCIAL BEEKEEPING
CLAIRE KEOGH
W
We typically think of the phrase "ripped from the
headlines" when referring to movies or books, but
for Dr. Fiona Edwards Murphy, the news of the mo-
ment ended up informing her Ph.D. research and,
ultimately, a business. "During university, I got in-
volved with the embedded systems network and fell
in love with wireless sensor networks and the Inter-
net of Things," recalls Edwards Murphy, who com-
pleted her undergraduate degree in electrical and
electronic engineering at University College Cork,
Ireland. "I wanted to pursue a Ph.D., but there wasn't
a topic that set my world on fire. At the time-2012
and 2013-I saw how everyone was panicking
about colony collapse disorder, and I won-
dered if anyone had looked into putting
sensors into beehives. A little bit of re-
search showed there had been some work
in the area but nothing extensive, so I
decided to focus my Ph.D. there."
Colony collapse disorder is exactly
what it sounds like: the collapse of hon-
eybee colonies. Bees are the only insect
Dr. Fiona
pollinators that humans can manage on a
Edwards Murphy
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MWIE.2019.2902997
Date of publication: 8 May 2019
8
IEEE WOMEN IN ENGINEERING MAGAZINE
JUNE 2019
commercial scale and are used to pollinate a variety of
crops that contribute a huge portion of the nutritious
part of our diet, such as almonds, avocados, and blue-
berries. According to Edwards Murphy, honeybees pro-
vide around US$174 billion of pollination to the world
each year, so loss of the insects or of beekeepers, who
leave the industry because of difficulties managing
their colonies and maintaining profitability, creates a
significant challenge to our well-being.
"The biggest problem facing the pollination in-
dustry is that there are so many problems," says Ed-
wards Murphy. "There isn't one big disease that has
wiped out all the beehives; beehives are very compli-
cated, tiny balanced organisms. So contributing fac-
tors [to the bee falloff] are, for example, diseases and
pests, decline in biodiversity, and lack of wildflower
access. If there was just one issue, it could perhaps
be solved."
Where her Ph.D. research came in was on the uti-
lization of sensors to monitor the internal conditions
of hives, which would help beekeepers get the infor-
mation they need from their massive fields of beehives
to know which problems they should respond to and
how to prioritize their efforts most effectively. With
this idea, Edwards Murphy applied for funding from
the Irish Research Council and, upon being granted
1942-065X/19©2019IEEE
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - June 2019
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - June 2019
Contents
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - June 2019 - Cover1
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - June 2019 - Cover2
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - June 2019 - Contents
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - June 2019 - 2
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - June 2019 - 3
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - June 2019 - 4
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - June 2019 - 5
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - June 2019 - 6
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - June 2019 - 7
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - June 2019 - 8
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - June 2019 - 9
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - June 2019 - 10
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - June 2019 - 11
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - June 2019 - 12
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - June 2019 - 13
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - June 2019 - 14
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - June 2019 - 15
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - June 2019 - 16
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - June 2019 - 17
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - June 2019 - 18
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - June 2019 - 19
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - June 2019 - 20
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - June 2019 - 21
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - June 2019 - 22
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - June 2019 - 23
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - June 2019 - 24
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - June 2019 - 25
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - June 2019 - 26
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - June 2019 - 27
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - June 2019 - 28
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - June 2019 - 29
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - June 2019 - 30
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - June 2019 - 31
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - June 2019 - 32
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - June 2019 - Cover3
IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - June 2019 - Cover4
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/womenengineering_december2023
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/womenengineering_june2023
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/womenengineering_december2022
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/womenengineering_june2022
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/womenengineering_december2021
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/womenengineering_june2021
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/womenengineering_december2020
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/womenengineering_june2020
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/womenengineering_december2019
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/womenengineering_june2019
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/womenengineering_december2018
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/womenengineering_summer2018
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/womenengineering_winter2017
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/womenengineering_summer2017
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/womenengineering_winter2016
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/womenengineering_summer2016
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/womenengineering_winter2015
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/womenengineering_summer2015
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/womenengineering_winter2014
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/womenengineering_summer2014
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/womenengineering_winter2013
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/womenengineering_summer2013
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/womenengineering_winter2012
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/womenengineering_summer2012
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/womenengineering_winter2011
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/womenengineering_winter2010
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/womenengineering_summer2010
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/womenengineering_winter2009
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/womenengineering_summer2009
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/womenengineering_winter2008
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/womenengineering_summer2008
https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ieee/womenengineering_winter2007
https://www.nxtbookmedia.com