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Buildings account for approximately 40% of annual greenhouse gas emissions in the United States. In New York State, approximately 80% of residential and commercial buildings were constructed before the emerging energy codes in the 1970s. Therefore, there is a significant need for affordable and scalable building retrofit solutions with low embodied emissions to meet the targets in the NYS Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act of 2019.

A building energy audit is the initial step to quantify a building's energy performance and reveal its energy-saving potential. However, performing a high-level energy audit requires detailed field analysis and is often time-consuming and expensive. Digital solutions are needed to make different parts of the building assessment process affordable, efficient, and scalable. Professors Crovella and Mirzabeigi will discuss their research project to develop a drone-based technique that automates building envelope inspection procedures and collects data for developing semantic-rich models for retrofit design and verification.

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About the Speakers

Paul Crovella serves at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry (SUNY ESF), where he provides teaching, research, and outreach in Sustainable Construction Management. The objective of the program is to develop the next generation of sustainability leaders for the construction industry. Paul studied both engineering and architecture in college, but his summer job as a timber framer first exposed him to the intricate dance between design and construction. Since then, Paul has pursued opportunities to transition the building process to a more collaborative, human-centered, and sustainable approach. At SUNY ESF Paul is fortunate to lead an interdisciplinary “Discovery Challenge” team that is working to remove barriers, lower costs, and reduce risk for mass timber construction.

Shayan Mirzabeigi is an Assistant Professor of Sustainable Construction Management at SUNY ESF. He is also pursuing a Ph.D. in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Syracuse University. Shayan earned his M.S. in Building Engineering from Politecnico di Milano, Italy, in 2020, and his bachelor’s degree in Architectural Engineering from the University of Tehran, Iran, in 2016. With degrees across three distinct fields from three countries, Shayan’s research is highly interdisciplinary and collaborative. His current research interests include Energy Efficient Buildings; Integrated Building Assessment; Building Physics; Building Envelope and Materials; and Sustainable and Resilient Built Environment.