Dirk Pesch is a Professor in the School of Computer Science and Information Technology and the current Head of School. Dirk is an internationally leading research in the area of the Internet of Things and Cyber-Physical Systems with applications in smart and connected communities, vehicular networks, smart manufacturing, and health and well-being. Dirk is the Director of the Research Ireland funded Centre for Research Training in Advanced Networks for Sustainable Societies (http://www.advance-crt.ie). He is also a co-Principal Investigator of the world-leading Research Ireland CONNECT Centre for Future Networks (http://www.connectcentre.ie). Dirk is a leader and steering board member of the Cork Smart Gateway (http://www.corksmartgateway.ie) initiative, a smart communities initiative in Cork City and County. Since 2000, Dirk has been personally involved in Irish and European research grants totalling in excess of €85M of which approx. €16M have directly supported his own research. Dirk has (co-)authored over 250 scientific journal and conference articles and book chapters. He co-edited/authored the first book focused on Internet of Things technologies enabling energy-positive urban neighbourhoods, published by Academic Press. He contributes to international conference organisation in his area of expertise including scientific flagship conferences such as the IEEE International Conference on Communications, IEEE Globecom, IEEE World Forum on the Internet of Things, IEEE Wireless Communication Networks Conference, IEEE VTC, and IFIP Networking, where he is a regular Technical Programme Committee member. He also contributes, as a member of the steering board, to the direction and programme of the industry-focused annual Embedded World Conference series (co-located with the Embedded World Exhibition). He was the Technical Programme Co-Chair of the IEEE SmartComp 2024 conference and the General Co-Chair and local host of the IEEE SmartComp 2025 conference in Cork, Ireland. Dirk acts as an international reviewer for research funding agencies such as the DFG (Germany), Academy of Finland, Luxembourg's FNR, and France's ANR. He is also a supervisory board member of the PZAI (Doctoral Training Centre in Applied Computer Science) of the Universities of Applied Sciences of the German federal state of Hesse.

My research focuses on the design, optimisation and evaluation of communication protocols, management techniques, and system architectures for the Internet of Things (IoT) and networked Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) and their applications to smart and connected communities, vehicular networks, health and wellbeing, and smart manufacturing. In my research we typically use mathematical modelling and computer simulation techniques to analyse the networked systems we study, but where possible, we also build real systems to study relevant real-world applications. I use machine learning techniques to predict and optimise their behaviour and performance. In addition to the design and evaluation of such systems, I am also interested in addressing the interoperability problem of IoT/CPS, which has led to technology fragmentation and limits widespread adoption of the technology for many real world applications. Within this context, I am interested in co-design approaches of IoT/CPS services with end-users, in particular in the smart and connected communities space. More recently, I have become interested in using Internet of Things technology to support wellbeing using mobile and wearable sensing technologies to collect human behavioural data and use machine learning to analyse and predict people's wellbeing. For this, I collaborate with colleagues from the social sciences. My publications can be found at https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=5Rx1K5IAAAAJ&hl=en

My teaching interests focus on applied computer science with specific emphasis on Internet of Things networking, services, and management, cyber-physical and embedded systems design, and experimental and simulation based performance evaluation. I regularly teach the following modules: BSc in Computer Science: CS4628 Internet of Things, BA in Digital Humanities and Information Technology: CS3061 Systems and Software Practices, MSc in Computing Science: CS6327 Internet of Things: Technology and Applications. Each June, I also lead the summer school "CS7105 Technology for Society Summer School", which is offered for doctoral students of the Research Ireland Centre for Research Training in Advanced Networks for Sustainable Societies, a collaboration led by UCC with partners in MTU, Maynooth University, TU Dublin and Trinity College Dublin. Each year, I also supervise a number of BSc Computer Science and BA Psychology and Computing final year projects and MSc Computing Science dissertation projects.

I supervise/co-supervise a number of PhD students at UCC with one external supervision at Maynooth University through the CONNECT Centre. The following list are the PhD students:

1. Ramin Soleimani (UCC)
2. Kouros Zanbouri (UCC)
3. Andrew Nash (UCC)
4. Nowshaba Wani (UCC)
5. Nasrin Shamaeian (UCC)
6. Annette Loy (UCC)
7. Arif Hossan (UCC)
8. Faiza Bibi (UCC)
9. Nirmal Wickramasinghe (Maynooth University)
10. Patryk Straszewicz (UCC/Tyndall)
11. Emily Schiller (UCC, etxernal)