June 20, 2024
Members of SCI’s Department of Computer Science (CS) want to improve Pitt’s energy efficiency and reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions on campus. Their project “Sustainable (Campus) Buildings through Sensing and Human-Building Interaction,” aims to do just that.
SCI CS faculty members Daniel Mossé, professor and interim chair, Stephen Lee, assistant professor, and Nadine von Frankenberg, teaching assistant professor received the Mascaro Center for Sustainable Innovation 2024-25 award for the project, an interdisciplinary program integrating principles of computer science, psychology, and operations.
Buildings are the largest contributor of urban GHG, and the project will mitigate these harms by making existing buildings more sustainable instead of building new structures. By collecting and analyzing sensor data from on-campus buildings, the researchers will extract solutions to optimize energy efficiency in the built environment and work with facilities management (FM) to implement them. The research will provide FM with tangible, effective methods to manage buildings’ energy usage and reduce their GHG emissions.
Along with FM, the project is a joint effort with fellow CS professor Panos Chrysanthis, Benjamin M. Rottman, associate professor of psychology, and Ousmane Dieng, postdoctoral associate.
The Mascaro Center for Sustainable Innovation 2024-25 awards support faculty conducting sustainability research at Pitt with seed grants and faculty fellow awards. Ryan Shi, assistant professor with CS, also received a John C. Mascaro faculty award for his project, “AI-based Volunteer Engagement for Crowdsourcing,” which can be read about here.
Please join us in congratulating Drs. Mossé, Lee, and von Frankenberg, on this achievement!
--Alyssa Morales
