Aaron Groome

M.Sc. Student in Computer Science at Trinity College Dublin

I am a Master's student in Computer Science at Trinity College Dublin (B.A. (Mod) First Class Honours, 84%).

My research interests lie broadly at the intersection of AI for Ecological & Environmental Science, Remote Sensing and Applied Machine Learning. I care deeply about research that serves the common good. As a Naughton Fellow at the University of Notre Dame, I evaluated and optimised AI models for Arctic wildfire mapping and conducted fieldwork at Toolik Field Station in the Arctic Circle.

Email / GitHub / LinkedIn / CV
Aaron Groome

Research & Projects

Arctic Wildfire and Permafrost AI Detection

AI Detection of Post-Fire Permafrost Degradation

Naughton Fellow & REU Researcher - Rocha Lab (Notre Dame, Indiana & Toolik Field Station, Alaska)

Problem: Arctic fires accelerate permafrost thaw and ice-wedge degradation. Ice-wedge troughs are narrow, linear features that are difficult to map manually. Models have been built to tackle this, but have not been tested fully.

Solution: Evaluated and optimised a U-Net Convolutional Neural Network to identify ice wedge troughs in various kinds of satellite imagery data from the 2007 Anaktuvuk River Fire, the largest recorded fire in the Arctic.

Read Technical Breakdown ↓

1. Computational Research (University of Notre Dame, Indiana): Annotated ice-wedge troughs satellite imagery for ground truth data and experimented with various parameters to optimise AI models.

2. Arctic Field Expedition (Toolik Field Station, Alaska): Conducted fieldwork at Toolik Field Station, America's premier Arctic Research Base in the Arctic Circle. Worked with the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University taking thaw depth measurements, measuring soil gas fluxes and chlorophyll fluorescence of leaf samples. Successfully led a helicopter campaign to collect data from multiple remote sites at the 2007 Anaktuvuk River Fire while up against time, fuel and weather restrictions.

Python ArcGIS Satellite Imagery Computer Vision Fieldwork
[Rocha Lab] [Naughton Fellowship]
Legislative Drafting Assistant

Legislative Drafting Assistant for US Congress

Lead Developer - Trinity College Dublin

Problem: Statutory drafting requires strict adherence to legal syntax, cross-referencing existing federal codes, and navigating complex domain-specific language.

Solution: Built an AI-native add-in to Microsoft Word to assist US legislators. Created as part of a team for the Trinity Industry Projects Showcase.

Read Technical Breakdown ↓

System Architecture: Built a custom Office JavaScript (Office.js) Add-in integrated with an asynchronous Python NLP backend. The embedded Word task window enabled real-time text analysis without disrupting the user's document editing workflow.

NLP Pipeline & Features: Designed text processing modules to parse statutory syntax, extract named legal entities, cross-reference provisions against the United States Code (U.S.C.), and assist legislators in enforcing standardised language.

Recognition:
  • Selected as a Trinity Industry Projects Showcase Finalist and presented the technical architecture and live demonstration to academic faculty and industry experts.
Python JavaScript Office.js NLP CSS
[code]
Abair Irish Language Game

Neural Text-to-Speech Educational Application

NLP Research Intern - Abair.ie (Trinity College Dublin)

Problem: Indigenous language acquisition for children requires interactive, phonetically accurate speech synthesis models tailored for low-resource languages.

Solution: Worked on building a React game to teach children Irish prononciation utilising text-to-speech models built in-house.

Read Technical Breakdown ↓

Role & Team Contribution: Worked within a research team to extend and refine an interactive React platform post-MVP. Engineered new game mechanics and integrated in-house Irish neural text-to-speech synthesis APIs to improve gameplay and user engagement.

Technical Focus: Optimised frontend state management in React and streamlined frontend-to-backend communication scripts in Python.

React Python TTS NLP
[abair.ie]
Course4Me Platform Preview

Course4Me - Academic Course Discovery & Schedule Planning Platform

Creator & Lead Developer

Problem: University course catalogs are often fragmented and difficult to search, making course selection and prerequisite verification unintuitive for students.

Solution: Architected a web-based conversational AI system that ingests Irish Higher Education datasets to deliver personalised course guidance for Leaving Certificate candidates. Built as part of a two-person team for the OpenAI Build Week Hackathon.

Read Technical Breakdown ↓

Data: Designed a full-stack academic planning platform that ingests, cleans, and indexes university course catalogs into a structured database schema. Configured relational mappings to manage prerequisite dependencies, credit weightings (ECTS), and department metadata.

User Interface (UI): Implemented real-time dynamic search filtering and advice from an LLM that cites its sources.

Python JavaScript SQL HTML/CSS REST API
[code]

Education

Awards

2026
Naughton Fellowship - Awarded to facilitate bilateral transatlantic research at Notre Dame.
2022
Entrance Exhibition - Awarded to top performing students from their respective secondary schools on admission to Trinity.
2020
Visma Security Hall of Fame - Responsibly disclosed a critical security flaw exposing the majority of Irish secondary students' private information (grades, private national IDs and home addresses).

Leadership

2026 – Present
Undergraduate STEM Convenor - Trinity Students' Union

  • Representative for 8,000+ STEM undergrads at college committees
  • Committees include University Council, the highest Education decision making committee as well as the Undergraduate Studies Committee, where academic policy, procedures, regulations and practice are debated and discussed.
2026 - Present
Student2Student Mentor - Trinity College Dublin
  • Serving as a guide for a group of 25 students new to Trinity to settle into college life.
  • Organising bi-weekly events for Junior Fresh students to make new friends.
  • Sending a weekly newsletter to students on college life.
2025 – 2026
Chair of Oversight Commission & Secretary to Council - Trinity Students' Union
  • Managed union policy oversight and constitutional compliance investigations.
  • Co-organised Council, the committee deciding Union policy on student issues.
  • This work ensured the Union would be considered a serious body in the eyes of college representing 22,000 students.
2024 – Present
Foodbank Activity Lead - St. Vincent De Paul
  • Leading the weekly packing and distribution of food supplies to 100+ families across Dublin.