The Herberger Center for Design Research is pleased to be hosting two visiting scholars. Rajat Gupta, PhD and Susan Roaf, PhD, who are contributing to the intellectual life of the college via guest lectures in classes, participating in HCDR research initiatives such as carbon mapping and solar integrated design, working with international solar conference planning, and supporting PhD programming. We look forward to their ongoing participation and contributions to the center and the college.
Dr. Rajat Gupta
Dr Rajat Gupta is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Architecture and Co-Director of the Oxford Institute for Sustainable Development: Architecture Unit (OISD:A), at Oxford Brookes University, Oxford. He is qualified as an Architect in India and London and gained an MSc in Energy Efficient Building and a doctorate from Oxford Brookes University.
He is recipient of the prestigious RIBA President’s award for outstanding research (2006) related to DECoRuM®, a GIS-based software model, which has been funded as a "proof of concept" to help planners and policy-makers count, cost, and reduce domestic carbon emissions on an urban scale. Dr Gupta has also received awards for outstanding research in sustainable architecture in 2005 and 2007 from Oxford Brookes University. He has been managing a number of research projects in the field of carbon-counting and carbon-reduction from buildings and cities across UK, USA, and India.
Currently, he is leading an industry-funded project to develop a toolkit for the UK’s Code for Sustainable Homes and an EPSRC CASE-funded project to assess the potential of ground source heat pumps in reducing domestic carbon emissions in a changing climate.
Dr Gupta has coauthored a book, Closing the Loop: Benchmarks for Sustainable Buildings (2004), RIBA publications Ltd, and developed the Climate Change Action Plan for the City of Oxford in 2005, which has been implemented. He was invited in November 2006 to give evidence for energy efficiency and solar energy versus nuclear energy in the UK House of Commons. Dr Gupta sits on the London 2012 Carbon Management Strategy Advisory Group run by London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games and Paraolympic Games and is an invited member of the BSI’s Shadow Committee for CEN TF-190: Energy Efficiency and Savings Calculations. He has chaired British Council-funded international conferences on sustainable energy technologies and low carbon buildings (February 2008) and Greening Events and Energy-efficient Cities for Lasting Legacies (February 2007) held in New Delhi, as well as the Science Forum of the 2nd International Solar Cities Congress 2006 held in Oxford (April 2006). Dr Gupta is also coconvener of the Westminster Carbon Counting Group and chair of the Adaptation Working Group run by International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI). Dr. Gupta currently speaks nationally and internationally on the subject of climate change and carbon emission reduction planning in cities.
Carbon Counting Research
DECoRuM®
www.decorum-model.org.uk
Dr. Susan Roaf
Dr. Susan Roaf is a Professor of Sustainable Architecture and Director of the Oxford-based Low Carbon Cities Initiative. Born in Malaya and educated there and in Australia and England, she has degrees from the University of Manchester, the Architectural Association, and Oxford Brookes University. Professor Roaf completed her doctorate on the Windcatchers of Yazd in 1989 after some ten years spent in the Middle East, living in the desert city of Yazd with the Beiranvand Tribe in Luristan and excavating for seven years in Iraq with her husband. Her first book was on the Ice-houses of Britain, followed by books on Energy Efficient Buildings, Thermal Comfort, Ecohouse Design, Benchmarks for Sustainable Buildings, and the impacts of Climate Change on buildings. She is currently engaged in research and teaching on subjects as diverse as photovoltaics in buildings, building materials and sustainable design, integration of renewable energy, and issues of sustainability into buildings and communities, to ecotourism in the northwest frontier province of Pakistan and the technologies of the ancient world. She is a visiting professor at Arizona State University (USA) and Open University (UK). Professor Roaf has served on a range of national and international committees, and she is currently a Liberal Democrat Councillor for Wolvercote Ward in Oxford, Chair of the Oxford City Council Environment Scrutiny Committee, and Chair of the 2008 Oxford Conference on "Resetting the Agenda for Architectural Education." She also chaired the 2nd International Solar Cities Congress held in Oxford from April 3–6, 2006.
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