Keynotes and Plenary Lectures

Dr Rachel Adams

University of California, Berkeley/California Department of Public Health
Measuring microbial growth in damp buildings: Ongoing efforts at an age-old public health problem

Dr Adams obtained her PhD in Biology at Stanford in 2011, on the interplay between instraspecific diversity and species interactions in communities. She has since returned to Berkeley in March 2011 as post doctoral fellow in the Bruns and Taylor labs and is currently a Project Scientist within the Department of Plant & Microbial Biology. Her research targets significant gaps existing in our understanding of microbial sources and dynamics in buildings, which present a unique ecological setting of importance for human health.

Prof Jan Carmeliet

ETH Zürich, Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering
Multiscale unveil of moisture in buildings

Since June 2008, Jan Carmeliet is full professor at the Chair of Building Physics at the department of Mechanical Engineering at ETH Zürich. Jan Carmeliet, graduated from the K.U.Leuven in 1992 and assistant and associate Professor at K.U.Leuven from 1998-2008 and part-time Professor at T.U.Eindhoven from 2001 to 2008. He was in 2007 on sabbatical leave at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign and at Los Alamos Governmental Laboratories. His research resulted in >300 scientific journal papers. His research interest concerns building and urban physics: physical processes in multiscale porous and granular materials, urban microclimate and urban energy systems.

Prof John Grunewald

Technische Universität Dresden, Faculty of Architecture
Application of hygrothermal simulation in building renovation and regenerative heat supply

Prof Hartwig Kunzel

Fraunhofer Institute for Building Physics (IBP)
How moisture control standards should be updated to improve moisture tolerance and practical applicability

Prof. Dr. Hartwig M. Künzel is head of department at the Fraunhofer-Institute for Building Physics and responsible for hygrothermal investigations sponsored by industry and government. During his PhD work, Künzel developed the hygrothermal model WUFI®, an internationally recognized and widely applied simulation tool for moisture control in buildings. Künzel is member of ASHRAE and has been principle reviser of Chapter 25 of the internationally renowned ASHRAE Handbook of Fundamentals. He is teaching at the University of Stuttgart and has published more than 350 scientific articles in international trade journals, conference proceedings and text books.

Dr Peter Rickaby

UCL Institute of Environmental Design and Engineering (IEDE) & UKCMB
The Long Road to Quality-Assured, Moisture Safe Retrofit in the UK

Peter Rickaby spent 35 years as an energy and sustainability consultant specialising in housing retrofit. He contributed to the Each Home Counts review and was a member of the Implementation Board. He chairs the BSI Retrofit Standards Task Group and was technical author of PAS 2035 Retrofitting Dwellings for Energy Efficiency and PAS 2038 Retrofitting Non-Domestic Buildings for Energy Efficiency. Peter helps run the UK Centre for Moisture in Buildings and coordinates the Building Envelope Research Network, at UCL. He is also Technical Director of The Retrofit Academy and works with Savills to help housing organisations move towards ‘zero carbon’.

Prof Menghao Qin

Technical University of Denmark (DTU), Department of Civil Engineering – Novel functional materials for energy-efficient indoor moisture control

Prof. Qin has performed research into building physics and building energy system since the late1990s. His work has included heat, air and moisture transport in buildings; smart building materials; indoor environmental quality; energy-efficient building system design, etc. He has developed advanced experimental methods, new smart materials, computer simulation models and environmental control technologies. He has published 3 books and over 150 research papers, and has managed several large-scale research projects with international partners, e.g. EU H2020, IEA, NSFC, etc., He has been invited to deliver many lectures internationally.

Prof Monika Woloszyn

Université Savoie Mont Blanc (USMB), Laboratoire LOCIE, Solar Academy
Effects of moisture on building energy performance: The difficult assessment