Alina Barnett

Alina is a computer science Ph.D. student working with Professor Cynthia Rudin in the Prediction Analysis Lab. She is interested in identifying buildings with poor insulation to better inform civic planning as well as data concerning efficiency.  

Project summary: “A poorly insulated building requires more energy to heat and cool than a well-insulated building. Using publicly available thermal satellite imagery and a super-resolution algorithm, estimates can be made about the energy efficiency of individual buildings. Super-resolution is the problem of finding a high-resolution image from a low-resolution image. The goal is to create high-resolution, accurate, realistic reconstructed images from low-resolution images to enhance image data and recover visual information. By identifying buildings with poor insulation (and therefore poor energy efficiency), policy can be informed by data, such as providing incentives to install new insulation. My goal is for data to detect in-need communities not only by region, but by specific household, to further direct policy and civic planning.”