On learning to steer buildings (and their occupants) toward greater societal value
Abstract
We spend the vast majority of our lives indoors, supported by buildings that consume a substantial portion of global resources—particularly energy. Less obvious but equally important is the fact that buildings also mediate the production of human, social, and physical capital by shaping how occupants work, collaborate, and develop skills. To optimize this exchange—transforming raw resources into societal value—we need to understand how building operations influence these outcomes. While sensors and data analytics have enabled new research in this space and have transformed our understanding, two aspects remain understudied: (1) modeling human-building interactions and their contribution to social capital formation; and (2) overcoming building stock heterogeneity to deploy automated control solutions at scale. I'll leverage recent work from my lab and collaborations to illustrate the promises and pitfalls of these research directions.
Short bio
Mario Bergés is a Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), and a Scholar at Amazon. At CMU, he is interested in making our built environment more operationally efficient and robust through the use of information and communication technologies, so that it can better deal with future resource constraints and a changing environment. Currently his work largely focuses on supporting autonomous systems (buildings, space habitats and other physical infrastructure assets) by developing digital twin frameworks through which software and human agents can interact with them.
Bergés has led multiple research projects on a wide range of problems related to sensing and data analysis for civil infrastructure systems, particularly in the area of buildings and energy efficiency with funding from federal agencies (e.g., DOE, ARPA-E, NSF, NASA), industry (e.g., Bosch, HP Labs, Samsung) and other sources. His work has resulted in over 100 publications in top peer-reviewed journal and conference venues as well as popular press coverage by the Wall Street Journal, the American Society of Civil Engineers and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.
Bergés is the director of the Intelligent Infrastructure Research Lab (INFERLab) at CMU. Among recent awards, he received the Best Paper Award at ACM BuildSys in 2019, and the Professor of the Year Award by the ASCE Pittsburgh Chapter in 2018. Bergés received his B.Sc. in 2004 from the Instituto Tecnológico de Santo Domingo, in the Dominican Republic; and his M.Sc. and Ph.D. in Civil and Environmental Engineering in 2007 and 2010, respectively, both from Carnegie Mellon University. When not conducting research at CMU or Amazon (both of which, thankfully, he enjoys very much), Mario also enjoys traveling, cooking, playing guitar and spending time with his family.
We spend the vast majority of our lives indoors, supported by buildings that consume a substantial portion of global resources—particularly energy. Less obvious but equally important is the fact that buildings also mediate the production of human, social, and physical capital by shaping how occupants work, collaborate, and develop skills. To optimize this exchange—transforming raw resources into societal value—we need to understand how building operations influence these outcomes. While sensors and data analytics have enabled new research in this space and have transformed our understanding, two aspects remain understudied: (1) modeling human-building interactions and their contribution to social capital formation; and (2) overcoming building stock heterogeneity to deploy automated control solutions at scale. I'll leverage recent work from my lab and collaborations to illustrate the promises and pitfalls of these research directions.
Short bio
Mario Bergés is a Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), and a Scholar at Amazon. At CMU, he is interested in making our built environment more operationally efficient and robust through the use of information and communication technologies, so that it can better deal with future resource constraints and a changing environment. Currently his work largely focuses on supporting autonomous systems (buildings, space habitats and other physical infrastructure assets) by developing digital twin frameworks through which software and human agents can interact with them.
Bergés has led multiple research projects on a wide range of problems related to sensing and data analysis for civil infrastructure systems, particularly in the area of buildings and energy efficiency with funding from federal agencies (e.g., DOE, ARPA-E, NSF, NASA), industry (e.g., Bosch, HP Labs, Samsung) and other sources. His work has resulted in over 100 publications in top peer-reviewed journal and conference venues as well as popular press coverage by the Wall Street Journal, the American Society of Civil Engineers and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.
Bergés is the director of the Intelligent Infrastructure Research Lab (INFERLab) at CMU. Among recent awards, he received the Best Paper Award at ACM BuildSys in 2019, and the Professor of the Year Award by the ASCE Pittsburgh Chapter in 2018. Bergés received his B.Sc. in 2004 from the Instituto Tecnológico de Santo Domingo, in the Dominican Republic; and his M.Sc. and Ph.D. in Civil and Environmental Engineering in 2007 and 2010, respectively, both from Carnegie Mellon University. When not conducting research at CMU or Amazon (both of which, thankfully, he enjoys very much), Mario also enjoys traveling, cooking, playing guitar and spending time with his family.
Practical information
- Informed public
- Free
Organizer
- Prof. Dimitrios Lignos (IIC), Prof. Andrew Sonta (ETHOS)
Contact
- Andrew Sonta (ETHOS)