Sustainability Education Committee: Feeling good with low-carbon cooling systems (Virtual)

This talk will explore lifecycle carbon emissions, thermal health, and material innovation across multiple design scales. The speaker will first re-position life cycle carbon emissions assessment of high-performance buildings through a case study on a net-zero architecture. He will then introduce new material technologies developed through interdisciplinary collaborations that reshape building cooling and thermal performance toward a necessary low-carbon future.

Speaker Bio:

Jonathan Grinham is an Assistant Professor of Architecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. Jonathan's research brings an intensely interdisciplinary approach to climate change and the built environment, connecting material science with building science and design to examine questions on materiality, thermal health, and lifecycle carbon emissions. These questions have sparked the development of novel technologies, publications, and patents that prove low-carbon building solutions through material innovation. Jonathan's research has gained significant recognition through numerous funding awards, including the Harvard Climate Change Solutions Fund, the Department of Energy Advanced Building and Construction program, and the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering's Validation Project program. He holds degrees in architecture and building science from Virginia Tech and a Doctor of Design degree from the GSD.