I am an expert in applied innovation at the intersection of technology and ecology, where infrastructure meets the natural world. I help my clients bring new ideas to market by synthesizing current research, asking hard questions, and helping people communicate across disciplines and trades. With decades of multi-disciplinary engineering and research experience – and a problem-solving approach grounded in physical first principles and rigorous question asking – I am uniquely equipped to develop novel products, evaluate new technologies, and resolve your project’s knottiest problems. I’ve helped startups, investors, designers, and researchers. Let's talk and see what I can do for you! What does this look like in practice? I collaborated with an established equipment manufacturer to design and test a large ceiling fan for classroom applications, leading to a new fan design for the project – and a new product offering for the manufacturer. I researched technologies and products for an energy services company, doubling identified savings opportunities in their customers’ buildings. I also developed go​/​no-go criteria to screen out low-opportunity buildings, saving hundreds of hours of engineering time. Early in the pandemic, I collaborated with HVAC engineers and epidemiologists to understand the aerosol nature of COVID. My ventilation-focused mitigation strategies – ultimately validated by the CDC, WHO and ASHRAE – enabled building owners to address risk at a time of great uncertainty. With standards committees that include both academic researchers and tradespeople (contractors), I regularly resolve conflicts by clarifying miscommunications, identifying unspoken assumptions, and translating discipline-specific jargon and concerns. I won an ASHRAE Technology Award for my design of a system using thermal mass to leverage diurnal temperature swing to cool a densely occupied building without air conditioning. Faced with a new LEED Gold laboratory where poor energy performance and persistent comfort issues stumped university engineering staff, I identified the cause and designed a new control strategy that solved the problem. I developed a completely novel control strategy to enable a thermodynamically zoned heat pump HVAC system, which saved $1 million in first costs for a new all-electric, zero carbon medical office building. I created CSI Division 25 (building automation) master specifications for a very well-known green design studio, dramatically improving their standard of practice for building controls.

Experience

Over 20 years experience in the building industry including MEP design, commissioning of new and existing buildings, building forensics and troubleshooting, and product development.