Mary Ann Piette, Senior Scientist
Director of the Building Technology & Urban Systems Division
& Director of the Demand Response Research Center
Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, Berkeley, CA

Profile: Mary Ann Piette is a Senior Scientist and the Director of the Building Technology and Urban Systems Division in the Energy Technologies Area at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. She oversees LBNL's building energy research activities with the U.S. Department of Energy, and she is also the Director of the Demand Response Research Center. Mary Ann's work involves developing and evaluating new technology and building components, windows, controls, operations, simulation, whole building and electric load shape analysis and behavior. Her Division also conducts research in data center energy efficiency, industrial energy efficiency, and federal energy management. Mary Ann has authored over 90 peer reviewed publications related to energy efficiency and demand response and has worked at LBNL since 1983. She is a board member of the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy and of the OpenADR Alliance. Mary Ann has an MS in Mechanical Engineering from UC Berkeley and a Licentiate in Building Services Engineering from the Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden.

Peter Crabtree
BEST Principal Investigator, Dean of Career & Technical Education
Laney College, Oakland, CA

Profile: Peter Crabtree has over 30 years of experience in community and workforce development. He has been the Dean of Career and Technical Education at Laney College for the past 14 years and worked for eleven years at the Peralta District Office leading local and regional career technical education program development as well as contract education. Dean Crabtree’s portfolio at Laney College includes multiple skilled trades departments, advanced manufacturing, Engineering, Construction Management, Architecture, workforce grants management, apprenticeships, cooperative education, and career center operations.

Dean Crabtree is the Principal Investigator for a National Science Foundation national Center of Excellence, “Building Efficiency for a Sustainable Tomorrow” (BEST). BEST works with colleges across the U.S. to support and develop career preparation programs in energy management and efficiency, high-performance building operations, building automation systems, and commercial HVAC. He is a recognized expert in sustainability education and is a frequent speaker at national and regional events.

Dean Crabtree has broad experience working with industry advisory groups and leading and guiding faculty teams in program and curriculum design and development in technical fields. Dean Crabtree is ABD for a PhD in Political Science at the University of California, Riverside and has an MA from UCR. He was a Lincoln-Juarez Fellow at the National Autonomous University of Mexico and is fluent in Spanish.

Mary Ann Piette, Senior Scientist
Director of the Building Technology & Urban Systems Division
& Director of the Demand Response Research Center
Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, Berkeley, CA

Profile: Mary Ann Piette is a Senior Scientist and the Director of the Building Technology and Urban Systems Division in the Energy Technologies Area at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. She oversees LBNL's building energy research activities with the U.S. Department of Energy, and she is also the Director of the Demand Response Research Center. Mary Ann's work involves developing and evaluating new technology and building components, windows, controls, operations, simulation, whole building and electric load shape analysis and behavior. Her Division also conducts research in data center energy efficiency, industrial energy efficiency, and federal energy management. Mary Ann has authored over 90 peer reviewed publications related to energy efficiency and demand response and has worked at LBNL since 1983. She is a board member of the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy and of the OpenADR Alliance. Mary Ann has an MS in Mechanical Engineering from UC Berkeley and a Licentiate in Building Services Engineering from the Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden.

Peter Crabtree
BEST Principal Investigator, Dean of Career & Technical Education
Laney College, Oakland, CA

Profile: Peter Crabtree has over 30 years of experience in community and workforce development. He has been the Dean of Career and Technical Education at Laney College for the past 14 years and worked for eleven years at the Peralta District Office leading local and regional career technical education program development as well as contract education. Dean Crabtree’s portfolio at Laney College includes multiple skilled trades departments, advanced manufacturing, Engineering, Construction Management, Architecture, workforce grants management, apprenticeships, cooperative education, and career center operations.

Dean Crabtree is the Principal Investigator for a National Science Foundation national Center of Excellence, “Building Efficiency for a Sustainable Tomorrow” (BEST). BEST works with colleges across the U.S. to support and develop career preparation programs in energy management and efficiency, high-performance building operations, building automation systems, and commercial HVAC. He is a recognized expert in sustainability education and is a frequent speaker at national and regional events.

Dean Crabtree has broad experience working with industry advisory groups and leading and guiding faculty teams in program and curriculum design and development in technical fields. Dean Crabtree is ABD for a PhD in Political Science at the University of California, Riverside and has an MA from UCR. He was a Lincoln-Juarez Fellow at the National Autonomous University of Mexico and is fluent in Spanish.

Peter Crabtree
BEST Principal Investigator, Dean of Career & Technical Education
Laney College, Oakland, CA

Building engineers and technicians are tasked with operating buildings to assure occupants’ safety and comfort. In addition, these technical professionals must apply their knowledge and skill within an increasingly complex and challenging environment driven by new technology in equipment and operating systems coupled with the drive for more efficient facilities and new concerns about preserving healthy building operations.

Technical building professionals must effectively use building systems to collect and analyze data and problem solve. They are called upon to take a proactive approach, not only toward maintaining systems but also toward continually improving building operations to meet high performance goals such as net-zero carbon.

Higher level knowledge and skills are required to meet these challenges. Recognizing this, BEST Center has been developing a national certification for high performance building operations technical professionals. This session discusses industry needs, the background behind developing the certification, and the effort to provide guidance to colleges and other training providers for aligning curriculum to meet the need for this new certification.

Profile: Peter Crabtree has over 30 years of experience in community and workforce development. He has been the Dean of Career and Technical Education at Laney College for the past 14 years and worked for eleven years at the Peralta District Office leading local and regional career technical education program development as well as contract education. Dean Crabtree’s portfolio at Laney College includes multiple skilled trades departments, advanced manufacturing, Engineering, Construction Management, Architecture, workforce grants management, apprenticeships, cooperative education, and career center operations.

Dean Crabtree is the Principal Investigator for a National Science Foundation national Center of Excellence, “Building Efficiency for a Sustainable Tomorrow” (BEST). BEST works with colleges across the U.S. to support and develop career preparation programs in energy management and efficiency, high-performance building operations, building automation systems, and commercial HVAC. He is a recognized expert in sustainability education and is a frequent speaker at national and regional events.

Dean Crabtree has broad experience working with industry advisory groups and leading and guiding faculty teams in program and curriculum design and development in technical fields. Dean Crabtree is ABD for a PhD in Political Science at the University of California, Riverside and has an MA from UCR. He was a Lincoln-Juarez Fellow at the National Autonomous University of Mexico and is fluent in Spanish.

Ted Wilinski, PE, BEST Co-PI & lead instructor
Automated Building Systems
Milwaukee Area Technical College, Milwaukee, WI

Building engineers and technicians are tasked with operating buildings to assure occupants’ safety and comfort. In addition, these technical professionals must apply their knowledge and skill within an increasingly complex and challenging environment driven by new technology in equipment and operating systems coupled with the drive for more efficient facilities and new concerns about preserving healthy building operations.

Technical building professionals must effectively use building systems to collect and analyze data and problem solve. They are called upon to take a proactive approach, not only toward maintaining systems but also toward continually improving building operations to meet high performance goals such as net-zero carbon.

Higher level knowledge and skills are required to meet these challenges. Recognizing this, BEST Center has been developing a national certification for high performance building operations technical professionals. This session discusses industry needs, the background behind developing the certification, and the effort to provide guidance to colleges and other training providers for aligning curriculum to meet the need for this new certification.

Profile: Mr. Wilinski has had a career of working on energy management and facilities operations, including as a consulting engineer and educator specializing in facilities and energy management. At Milwaukee Area Technical College (MATC) Mr. Wilinski has developed over 20 courses and currently teaches in the Automated Building Systems program, which includes controls, M&V, Energy Auditing, and Commissioning. In addition to teaching at MATC, he works on an NSF ATE grant, the BEST Center, and still does work as a consultant for his firm, Wilinski Associates Inc

Ken Walz, PhD
CREATE PI & Renewable Energy Faculty
Madison Area Technical College

Dr. Walz earned his B.S. degree in science education and Ph.D. in Environmental Chemistry and Technology at the University of Wisconsin. He has taught chemistry, engineering, and renewable energy at Madison Area Technical College since 2003.

From 2005-2016, Dr. Walz was project director and principal investigator for the Consortium for Education in Renewable Energy Technology (CERET). With funding from the National Science Foundation, CERET pioneered some of the first online renewable energy courses available in the United States. In the past decade, CERET has provided professional development for over 300 high school and community college instructors in photovoltaics and biofuel technology. These instructors have used CERET content and pedagogy to deliver their own renewable energy programs in over 42 U.S. States and Territories.

Dr. Walz is an alumnus of the Department of Energy Academies Creating Teacher Scientists (DOE ACTS) Program at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). He is also an adjunct professor with the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Wisconsin and an advisory board member for the Wisconsin K-12 Energy Education Program (KEEP). Dr. Walz has been recognized as Professor of the Year by the Carnegie Foundation and the Council for Advancement and Support of Education, and as the Energy Educator of the Year by the Wisconsin Association for Environmental Education.

William P. Bahnfleth, PhD, PE, ASHRAE Fellow
Professor of Architectural Engineering
The Pennsylvania State University, State College, PA

Contact Information: wbahnfleth@psu.edu

With the exception of healthcare facilities and some specialized environments, the vast majority of buildings are not designed with infection risk mitigation as an explicit strategy. The criteria used to define acceptable indoor air quality in such buildings that is employed in typical ventilation standards is safety with respect to chemical and particulate air contaminants and control of odors to achieve occupant satisfaction. The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed that this definition is inadequate if buildings are expected to provide good protection from airborne infectious disease transmission. It can be expected that, in the wake of the pandemic, ventilation standards such as ASHRAE Standard 62.1 Ventilation and Acceptable Indoor Air Quality will change in ways intended to provide better protection from the next epidemic – or flu season. This presentation will summarize key background on airborne disease transmission, review current ventilation and filtration requirements of ASHRAE Standard 62.1 from the perspective of airborne transmission risk mitigation, and speculate about possible future changes resulting from the pandemic experience.

Profile: William Bahnfleth is a professor of architectural engineering at the Pennsylvania State University. He held previous positions as Senior Consultant for ZBA, Inc. in Cincinnati, OH and Principal Investigator at the U.S. Army Construction Engineering Research Laboratory in Champaign, IL. He holds BS, MS, and PhD degrees in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Illinois and is a registered professional engineer. At Penn State, Dr. Bahnfleth teaches undergraduate courses in HVAC fundamentals and system design, and graduate courses in district cooling systems and indoor air quality. His research interests cover a wide variety of indoor environmental control topics including chilled water pumping systems, stratified thermal energy storage, protection of building occupants from indoor bioaerosol releases, and ultraviolet germicidal irradiation systems. He is the author or co-author of more than 170 technical papers and articles and 14 books and book chapters. Dr. Bahnfleth is a fellow of ASHRAE, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) and the International Society for Indoor Air Quality and Climate (ISIAQ). He served as President of ASHRAE in 2013-2014. His ASHRAE honors include the Louise and Bill Holladay Distinguished Fellow Award, E.K. Campbell Award, and F. Paul Anderson Award. He is also a recipient of the Penn State Engineering Alumni Society’s World-Class Engineering Faculty Award.

Peter Crabtree
BEST Principal Investigator, Dean of Career & Technical Education
Laney College, Oakland, CA

Profile: Peter Crabtree has over 30 years of experience in community and workforce development. He has been the Dean of Career and Technical Education at Laney College for the past 14 years and worked for eleven years at the Peralta District Office leading local and regional career technical education program development as well as contract education. Dean Crabtree’s portfolio at Laney College includes multiple skilled trades departments, advanced manufacturing, Engineering, Construction Management, Architecture, workforce grants management, apprenticeships, cooperative education, and career center operations.

Dean Crabtree is the Principal Investigator for a National Science Foundation national Center of Excellence, “Building Efficiency for a Sustainable Tomorrow” (BEST). BEST works with colleges across the U.S. to support and develop career preparation programs in energy management and efficiency, high-performance building operations, building automation systems, and commercial HVAC. He is a recognized expert in sustainability education and is a frequent speaker at national and regional events.

Dean Crabtree has broad experience working with industry advisory groups and leading and guiding faculty teams in program and curriculum design and development in technical fields. Dean Crabtree is ABD for a PhD in Political Science at the University of California, Riverside and has an MA from UCR. He was a Lincoln-Juarez Fellow at the National Autonomous University of Mexico and is fluent in Spanish.

Woody Delp, PhD, Mechanical Engineer
Indoor Environment Group
Building Technology & Urban Systems Division
Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, Berkeley, CA

This talk will cover Berkeley Lab’s work evaluating low-cost particle monitors with a focus on how good they are for wildfires and how they might be used for informing building operations. On-line sites (in particular purple air) will be discussed together work we have done on finding calibrations for on-line information sources to get the right particle concentrations for wildfire. The talk will cover mitigation methods with a focus on filtration systems in buildings and a discussion on the use of DIY filters.

Profile: Woody Delp has been at LBNL since 1995 and has worked in various project areas involving HVAC systems and how these systems actually operate in real buildings. His work has ranged from measuring duct leakage in light commercial buildings to understanding how pollutants move in large buildings. He is equally at home working with residential HVAC systems as well as systems found in the largest buildings. Woody Delp earned a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from University of Missouri Rolla in 1995. His graduate work involved modeling how much ventilation (outside air) comes into variable air volume (VAV) systems as they operate across a range of climates and seasons. Woody grew up in Rolla working in a family-owned HVAC contracting business. In his dad’s business he worked in every capacity, from service calls at a young age, to designing and installing complex systems for local laboratories. HVAC is very much in his blood.

Paul Ehrlich, PE
Founder and President
Building Intelligence Group

Building engineers and technicians are tasked with operating buildings to assure occupants’ safety and comfort. In addition, these technical professionals must apply their knowledge and skill within an increasingly complex and challenging environment driven by new technology in equipment and operating systems coupled with the drive for more efficient facilities and new concerns about preserving healthy building operations.

Technical building professionals must effectively use building systems to collect and analyze data and problem solve. They are called upon to take a proactive approach, not only toward maintaining systems but also toward continually improving building operations to meet high performance goals such as net-zero carbon.

Higher level knowledge and skills are required to meet these challenges. Recognizing this, BEST Center has been developing a national certification for high performance building operations technical professionals. This session discusses industry needs, the background behind developing the certification, and the effort to provide guidance to colleges and other training providers for aligning curriculum to meet the need for this new certification.

Profile: Paul Ehrlich is a well-known industry stakeholder and advocate of sustainable and intelligent buildings. In 2004, he formed Building Intelligence Group LLC, an independent consultancy whose primary purpose is to support and promote the delivery of high performance buildings. Services include systems assessment, master planning, training, and design for intelligent and sustainable building systems with a focus is in the areas of integrated systems, facility operations and enterprise management. Projects have been delivered for owners worldwide including major universities, corporations, and developers. Building Intelligence Group also provides market research and strategic planning services for leading system suppliers and organizations. Prior to forming Building Intelligence Group, Mr. Ehrlich held a series of corporate roles with Trane and Johnson Controls.

Throughout his career, Mr. Ehrlich has been actively involved with industry groups focused on the creation of new automation standards and technologies. Previous roles include chairing the ASHRAE Guideline 13 committee on how to specify DDC controls, chairing the BACnet sub-committee on interoperability, and acting as the inaugural chair for the oBIX committee to establish XML standards for building controls. He also served for eight years as an advisor to the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) and is currently a board advisor for the World Orphan Fund.

At RealComm 2008, Mr. Ehrlich was honored with the Digie Digital Impact Award, recognizing a commitment and passion to advance the concept of next generation buildings. Previously he had been awarded the Buildy Vision Award for his perseverance in promoting whole building integration and interoperability through advocacy, promotion, educational and training endeavors.

Mr. Ehrlich has a Bachelors degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Wisconsin and a Masters of Business Administration from the University of St. Thomas. He is a licensed professional engineer in the State of Wisconsin.

Milica Grahovac, PhD, Principal Scientific Engineering Associate
Energy Efficiency Standards Department & Simulation Research Group
Energy Analysis and Environmental Impacts Division
Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, Berkeley, CA

Contact Information: mgrahovac@lbl.gov

Control Description Language (CDL) is a declarative language for expressing control algorithms as block-diagrams that was developed by the Simulation Research Group of the Energy Technologies Area at Berkeley Lab. The CDL is a technology initiated in the scope of and used by the OpenBuildingControl (OBC) project that has a goal to revolutionize conventional building controls design and delivery process. The OBC project develops innovative technology and processes to digitize control design, verification, commissioning, and delivery.

In this presentation I will introduce you to the CDL by showing a few selected “words of the language”, that is, a few of the CDL basic blocks. I will also demonstrate the essence of simulation built using the CDL through a short demonstration.

The CDL is essentially a set of declarative elementary building blocks that represent either a physical (such as a sensor or an actuator) or a logical entity. The blocks can be composed into models, and this can be repeated hierarchically. The OBC project uses CDL blocks to create libraries of reference implementations of ASHRAE published Guideline 36 that features a number of high-performing control sequences for buildings. The OBC technology is already freely available through public code repositories. Additionally, the OBC team is currently developing a Sequence Configuration and Selection Tool that will make the OBC technology accessible and useful to the broader audience of control designers and energy modelers.

The processes invented in the scope of the OBC project hold significant potential to increase the energy efficiency of building controls in the commercial buildings sector. In the presentation, I will provide early estimates of the OBC technology environmental impact potential. In the final part of the presentation, I will introduce you to the ASHRAE standardization process for the CDL, which is currently in its early stages.

Profile: Milica Grahovac is a Principal Scientific Engineering Associate with the Energy Technologies Area at Berkeley Lab. She works with both the Energy Efficiency Standards, at the Energy Analysis and Environmental Impacts Division, and with the Simulation Research Group, at the Buildings Technologies and Urban Systems Division. Milica performs modeling, research, analysis, and develops sophisticated software tools at intersections of the fields of energy conservation standards, policy analysis, energy efficiency, renewable energy systems, HVAC systems and controls, and economy. She holds a Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering with a focus on Energy Economy from The Technical University of Munich in Germany, and has a background in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Banja Luka in Bosnia and Herzegovina. She is a member of ASHRAE, IEEE, and IBPSA.

Jessica Granderson, PhD, Staff Scientist
Deputy of Research Programs
Building Technology & Urban Systems Division
Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, Berkeley, CA

Overview of the state of art in energy management and information systems (EMIS) technology, key technology capabilities, best practices in technology use, technology costs savings and payback, trends, and future directions.

Profile: Dr. Jessica Granderson is a Staff Scientist and the Deputy of Research Programs for the Building Technology and Urban Systems Division at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. She is a member of the Whole Building Systems Department. Dr. Granderson holds a PhD in Mechanical Engineering from UC Berkeley, and an AB in Mechanical Engineering from Harvard University. Her research focuses on building energy performance monitoring and diagnostics, advanced measurement and verification, and intelligent lighting controls. She is the recipient of the 2015 Clean Energy Education and Empowerment (C3E) Award for Leadership in Research.

Deb Hall, PhD, Chair
Energy Management and Controls Technology
Valencia College, Orlando, FL

Contact Information: dhall@valenciacollege.edu

Valencia College (Orlando, FL) is addressing the needs of the State of Florida's educational programs, the underrepresented student population, the local area Building Automation Systems (BAS) industry, and the Central Florida community through the creation of an Associate in Science (A.S.) degree in Energy Management and Controls Technology (EMCT). Development of this new program has been possible thanks to a National Science Foundation (NSF) Advanced Technological Education (ATE) grant. One of the grant deliverables is to increase Valencia College’s EMCT female student population. In order to make strides towards this goal, we have been conducting a wide variety of outreach activities at events related to Veteran Career Fairs, Electrician Apprenticeships, HVAC/R Apprenticeships, Industry Partner Conferences, High School College Fairs, Middle School and 5th Grade Female Student Outreach Events. This presentation will include sharing some of Valencia College’s BAS tech outreach activity ideas, one of which involves BAS Tech Barbie and her Smart Barbie Grand Hotel, along with an open brainstorming session of how else we might be able to attract and encourage even more females to pursue a career in the building automation systems industry.

Profile: Dr. Hall is the Principal Investigator of the NSF ATE Proposal 1601403 for Valencia College called Broadening Education, Access, and Momentum in Energy Management and Controls Technology. Since January 2001, she has taught at Valencia College within its Division of Engineering, Computer Programming, and Technology. Dr. Hall has been teaching courses which fall under Valencia’s Electronics Engineering Technology Associate in Science Degree Program, Pre-Major Engineering Associate in Arts Degree Program, and Bachelor of Science in Electrical and Computer Engineering Technology Degree Program. She is currently Valencia College’s Energy Management and Controls Technology Associate in Science Degree Program Chair and Professor of Electronics Engineering Technology. Dr. Hall is also a National Visiting Committee Member of the Center for Renewable Energy Advanced Technological Education (CREATE). Prior to Valencia College, she worked as an electrical engineer for seven years with theme park ride and show control, electric vehicle battery testing, and solar power feasibility studies. Dr. Hall earned both her Master of Science in Electrical Engineering and her Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from the University of Central Florida and earned her Doctor of Education in Higher Education Leadership from Nova Southeastern University. She also has served within the Central Florida community as the 2018 IEEE Orlando Section Executive Committee Chair and is currently involved in many engineering technology related hands-on outreach programs to encourage 4th through 12th grade female students to pursue STEM related careers.

Brian Lovell, BEST Co-PI
Georgia Piedmont Technical College
President, Association of Controls Professionals
Atlanta, GA

Over the past few decades, new technology-centered STEM fields have emerged which offer stability, high wages, excitement, and flexibility for those who choose to pursue them. Unfortunately, many of these new career pathways are unknown to traditional high school students. In this session, we will discuss the factors which complicate the process of informing traditional learners, strategies to gain the attention of young learners, ideal ways in which to present the advantages of high-tech STEM careers, and how to get support in developing a recruiting campaign

Profile: Brian Lovell has been working in the building automation systems (BAS) field for over 25 years in every role from technician to BAS contracting firm business owner in the Atlanta area. Experiencing the need for more trained BAS technicians first-hand, he led the development of the nation’s first BAS Associate’s Degree of Applied Sciences, and has disseminated that program to several dozen colleges around the country through his ongoing work with the National Science Foundation, Department of Energy and others.

In response to the need for better training and definition of skills standards in the BAS industry, Brian co-founded the Association of Controls Professionals in 2014 and has served as its president. He holds various technical degrees, industry certifications and licensures, and post-graduate degrees in education.

John D. Macomber, Senior Lecturer
Harvard Business School
Cambridge, MA

Contact Information: jmacomber@hbs.edu

In this keynote discussion, Prof. Macomber will review the health science, financial approach, and positive impacts of a healthy building for building owners and occupiers (people). He will help facilities staff and design/construction professionals communicate the value proposition of healthy building design and the investment value of building to a healthy building standard with certification systems like Fitwel, LEED and WELL. Time frames include prior to COVID-19, returning to work and school after COVID-19, and the long term impacts of increases awareness of healthy air and buildings. Humans are estimated to spend 90% of their lives indoors, and this figure may be higher in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Scientific research shows that the buildings in which we live, learn, work, play and sleep can have a major impact on our health, productivity and overall wellness. But it’s not always easy for architects, engineers and contractors to persuade owners, developers and tenants about the business case for:

• healthy building materials

• going beyond the building code for ventilation

• increasing filtration of particulates to improve indoor air quality

• the many ways the indoor air we breathe is affecting our bodies and our ability to focus, learn, and be more productive

Join us to learn how to make the business case for healthy buildings as Professor Macomber discusses the foundations of a healthy building, how smart technology can boost employee performance, and the financial business case behind the healthy building movement.

Profile: John D. Macomber is a Senior Lecturer in finance at Harvard Business School. His work has appeared in the Harvard Business Review, Forbes, Wall St. Journal Asia, and the Boston Globe. He is the author of more than thirty case studies on infrastructure projects with particular emphasis on office buildings in the U.S., housing in India, water in Mexico, innovative project finance in Africa, and private sector-led new cities in Asia.

Robert Nirenberg, Program Coordinator
Heating, Ventilation & Air Conditioning (HVACR)
Metropolitan Community College, Omaha, NE

Contact Information: rtnirenberg@mccneb.edu

Over the past year, we faculty have been asked to make a significant number of changes and accommodations to the way we teach, probably none more challenging than being asked to move entirely online when teaching lab-critical courses. We already do everything we can to ensure that students are prepared before they walk in to our labs, we do our best to optimize the lab time they do get, but what do we do when they can no longer access the lab? Virtual environments will never replace lab time, but what if they could augment it? What if we could present the student with a problem in a virtual environment that allows them to explore and troubleshoot, basically do everything except have the actual tools in their hands? What if we could even accomplish this without costing our institution or our students a fortune?

Follow me through a “Choose your own adventure” style variable air volume (VAV) troubleshooting call--created with nothing more than what you probably already have in your lab, your pocket, and YouTube!

Profile: Since 2017, Robert has taught in Metropolitan Community College’s HVACR department and is currently the Program Coordinator. His background in both computer science and energy management helped to inform MCC’s building automation-related project titled AUTOMATE! (funded by National Science Foundation). Prior to this, he served as the college’s Energy Management Systems Coordinator and worked as both a Systems Programmer and Application Technician.

Mary Ann Piette, Senior Scientist
Director of the Building Technology & Urban Systems Division
& Director of the Demand Response Research Center
Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, Berkeley, CA

This talk will discuss the concept of Grid Interactive Efficient Buildings (GEBs), which is the new term to develop energy efficient buildings that can also interact with the electric grid. The US electric grid is changing with higher levels of variable renewables. Given that the renewable energy is intermittent, we need to have flexible demand to ensure we can have a clean, affordable, reliable, and equitable grid. This presentation will also talk about shape, shift, shed and shimmy demand response services from buildings. These capabilities require automation and there are numerous efforts and standards to enable automation. Finally, these technologies are important for a low-carbon grid. There are several efforts underway to evaluate the greenhouse gas savings from energy efficiency and GEBs.

Profile: Mary Ann Piette is a Senior Scientist and the Director of the Building Technology and Urban Systems Division in the Energy Technologies Area at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. She oversees LBNL's building energy research activities with the U.S. Department of Energy, and she is also the Director of the Demand Response Research Center. Mary Ann's work involves developing and evaluating new technology and building components, windows, controls, operations, simulation, whole building and electric load shape analysis and behavior. Her Division also conducts research in data center energy efficiency, industrial energy efficiency, and federal energy management. Mary Ann has authored over 90 peer reviewed publications related to energy efficiency and demand response and has worked at LBNL since 1983. She is a board member of the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy and of the OpenADR Alliance. Mary Ann has an MS in Mechanical Engineering from UC Berkeley and a Licentiate in Building Services Engineering from the Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden.

Carolyn Szum, Program Manager
Energy Analysis & Environmental Impacts Division
Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, Berkeley, CA

Building operations and construction account for 39% of global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. However, according to Architecture 2030, less than 1% of buildings are retrofitted annually. In order to stabilize atmospheric concentration of CO2 over the next several decades, a substantial increase in the speed and scale of building retrofits is needed. To fully capture this potential, Berkeley Lab is partnering with Johnson Controls to develop the Building Efficiency Targeting Tool for Energy Retrofits (BETTER) – a free web application that enables building operators to quickly, easily identify the most cost-saving energy efficiency measures in buildings and portfolios. Winner of a 2020 R&D 100 Award and a 2020 Berkeley Lab Director's Award for Exceptional Achievement in Technology Transfer, this presentation will introduce BETTER; discuss its features, analytical methodology, and capacity to support U.S. economic recovery in this unprecedented time of a global pandemic; and highlight partnerships with universities to provide training on BETTER to develop the next generation of cloud and field based comprehensive energy workers.

Profile: Carolyn Szum is a Program Manager at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory with 17 years of experience in energy efficiency market transformation, remote building energy analytics, and climate finance. She is the winner of a 2019 Keeling Curve Prize Honorable Mention for innovation in climate finance; a 2020 R&D 100 Award for the BETTER software application; and a 2020 LBNL Director’s Award for Exemplary Achievement in Technology Transfer. Prior to joining LBNL, Ms. Szum was a Lead Managing Consultant at ICF where she led energy efficiency projects for the U.S. Department of Energy, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Department of State, U.S. Agency for International Development, and The World Bank Group. She also served on the Hong Kong Business Environment Council and as Co-Chair of the U.S.-China Energy Cooperation Program Energy Efficient Building Design Working Group in Beijing, China. She has an M.A. in International Relations from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. She speaks Mandarin Chinese and Spanish. She has worked in the United States, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Mexico, Philippines, Taiwan, and Thailand.

Margaret S. Torn, PhD, Senior Scientist
Senior Advisor, Climate & Ecosystem Sciences Division
Earth & Environmental Sciences
Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, Berkeley, CA

I will present three vignettes about the global cycle of the element carbon, in the context of climate change. First, soils store more than twice as much carbon (in form of organic matter) as the atmosphere does (as CO2), but this soil organic matter can be destabilized by climate warming. Second, we have some of the first direct, physical evidence of the greenhouse effect from atmospheric CO2. Third, it is possible to decarbonize the U.S. energy and industrial systems. Combined with terrestrial sequestration there are multiple pathways to achieve net-zero energy emissions in the U.S. by 2050.

Profile: Dr. Margaret S. Torn is an ecologist and biogeochemist who studies the global carbon cycle and climate change. Margaret is an internationally recognized expert in soil carbon cycling and the potential for soils to generate positive feedbacks to climate change as well as for soils to sequester carbon. She runs climate change experiments in Arctic tundra and California forests. Margaret also leads the AmeriFlux Management Project, a network of 475 sites across the Americas measuring ecosystem carbon fluxes, with data used by thousands. Margaret helped found the first Deep Decarbonization Pathways Project, creating technical road maps for national and sub-national action to protect Earth’s climate. Margaret has published more than 150 scientific papers. She received the Presidential Early Career Award in 2003, has an honorary doctorate from the faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences at the University of Zurich, was elected a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union (AGU), and is the President-elect of the AGU Biogeosciences Section.

Iain Walker, PhD, ASHRAE Fellow, Staff Scientist/Engineer
Deputy of Whole Building Systems Department
Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, Berkeley, CA

This talk will cover the latest issues in ventilation. It will include issues around challenges due to COVID, best practices for dealing with COVID in buildings, and people's changing expectations of IAQ. I will talk about the pros and cons of trying to use measured IAQ for ventilation controls and an update from the field on IAQ in > 100 homes. Finally, I will talk about building electrification, the challenges and potential for improved IAQ.

Profile: Dr. Iain Walker has been studying energy and ventilation in buildings for more than 30 years. He is the current chair of the national energy standard: ASHRAE 62.2 and a member of the ASHRAE Epidemic Task Force developing guidance on HVAC and building-related COVID-19 responses. In addition to this ASHRAE effort, together with the rest of the LBNL IAQ team, the past several months have been very busy providing analyses and guidance to many organizations regarding COVID-19, Wildfires and IAQ in buildings. When not addressing these burning issues, he works for many standards bodies, such as ASTM, RESNET and EPA, developing field testing procedures for building diagnostics for energy and IAQ performance, quality control and energy ratings.

Erin Mayfield, Ph.D
Postdoctoral Research Associate
Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment; High Meadows Environmental Institute
Princeton University, Princeton, NJ

Dr. Mayfield will provide an overview of the Net-Zero America Project, a Princeton University study which outlines multiple pathways to reach net-zero emissions of greenhouse gases in the United States. This requires planning based on realistic, real-world assessments. The Net-Zero America Project aims to provide policy makers with analyses to support such planning. These analyses include estimates of key infrastructure build-outs across the country and potential impacts on industries, communities, existing infrastructure and the natural environment.