Dean Venables is a Senior Lecturer in Physical and Environmental Chemistry at University College Cork. He studied at Rhodes University (South Africa) and Yale University (USA), where he obtained his PhD in 2001. Dean is an atmospheric chemist with an interest in spectroscopic instrument development and air pollution, and his work combines field, chamber, and laboratory experiments. His current research focuses on developing portable and lower cost instrumentation suited to fast and mobile measurements of nitrogen dioxide and ammonia, which are  important urban and agricultural pollutants.

My research interests centre on developing sensitive absorption spectroscopic methods and systems to detect trace gases and key air pollutants. These instruments are applied to answer open questions in atmospheric chemistry. This includes the chemistry of the highly reactive radical species like the nitrate radical (NO3) that drive much of the chemistry of the atmosphere. Recently, my work aims to make fast, accurate, and sensitime measurements of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and ammonia (NH3), and to map the concentrations of these species to identify hotspots and sources of pollution in cities, towns, and the countryside.

Conor Dorney, 2023-

Rohit Vikas, 2024 - 

Ashley Edmonds (MRes), 2025 -