Meet Our Team
Urbsys Lab Director
Ravi Srinivasan
Professor of Construction Management
College of Design, Construction and Planning (DCP)
University of Florida
Research Interests: Modeling, Simulation and Visualization of net zero campuses and Smart Cities
Personal Interests: Ravi loves to spend time with his family. Among others, he is currently training to become FAA Certified Private Pilot which will allow him to fly measurement instruments to gather data related to building structure and to develop measures to reduce overall energy use in this changing climate.
Advisor
Bipin Shah
Advisor
Jennifer Bridge
Department of Civil & Coastal Engineering
University of Florida
Postdoctoral Associates
Deepak Balakrishnan, Ph.D.
Background: MS Mechanical Engineering, University of Florida
Research Interests: BIM, Building Permitting/Codes
Dongdong Wang, Ph.D.
Background: MS, Environmental Health Engineer, Duke University. Ph.D. Computer science, University of Central Florida
PhD Students
Michael J. Cegielski, Ph.D. Student
Xinxin Yan, Ph.D. Student
Past PhD Students
Deepak Balakrishnan, Ph.D.
Background: MS Mechanical Engineering, University of Florida
Research Interests: BIM, Building Permitting/Codes
Rahul Aggarwal, Ph.D
Background: MS Mechanical Engineering, UF
Research Interests: Energy Modelling, Building Thermal Properties
Damilola Onatayo Ph.D.
Background: MSc. Construction Management
Research Interests: BIM, Automation in Construction, Sustainability
Dongsoo Kim, Ph.D.
Background: Ph.D. Construction Management,
Dissertation title: Forecasting Impact Assessment of Residential Buildings Under Future Climate Change
Graduated: 2018
Ali Komeily, Ph.D.
McKinsey & Company, Boston, MA
Dissertation title: Towards Context-Aware Socioeconomic Benchmarking of Neighborhoods
Graduated: May 2017
Zeyu Wang, Ph.D. Postdoc
Guangzhou University, China
Dissertation title: Artificial Intelligence Based Ensemble Model for Energy Prediction of Educational Buildings
Graduated: May 2017
Mengda Jia, Ph.D.
Feedzai, San Francisco, CA
Dissertation title: Occupant Behavior Modeling for Improving Commercial Building Energy Use Simulation
Graduated: December 2018
He Zhang, Ph.D. Postdoc LEED AP BD+C, WELL AP
Background: Ph.D. Construction Management, UF; MSc Architectural Studies, UF; MFA in Environmental Design, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, China
Research Interests: Indoor Air Quality, Integrated Sensors, Data Analysis
Soheil Fathi, Ph.D.
Clark Construction, San Francisco, CA
Dissertation title: Campus Energy Use Prediction for Assessing the Effects of Climate Change Using Artificial Intelligence
Graduated: May 2019
Haekyung (Rosa) Im, Ph.D.
Background: MS Construction Engg., S. Korea
Research Interests: Urban Energy Forecasting, Machine Learning, Statistical Analysis
Personal Interests: Haekyung would like to be a good mentor to students as well as have a public park named ‘Rosa Park.’
International Visiting Scholars
Siddeshwar Chittoor
National Institute of Technology, Calicut, India
Bachelor Student
Rajashekar Elangovan, PhD
Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee
Supported by Indo-US Science & Tech. Forum (IUSSTF); Summer 2018, 3 months
Tarun Kumar, PhD Student
Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore
Supported by Indo-US Science & Tech. Forum (IUSSTF); Fall 2019, 6 months
Junxue Zhang, PhD Student
Southeast University, Nanjing, China
Supported by Chinese National Science Foundation; 2020, 12 months
International Collaborations
Indonesia
University of Pendidikan (UPI), Bandung
1.
Orchestrated and signed a multi-institutional Collaborative Agreement centered on building energy, sustainability, and smart city architectures.
Co-secured $1.375M in total international prize funding via the global Million Cool Roofs Challenge, securing a $125,000 phase-one award10 in 2019 followed by the $0.75M global grand prize11, and later $0.5M.
Established an international exchange pipeline, hosting Associate Professor Dr. Beta Paramita and Dr. Try Ramadhan at the UrbSys Lab via the UPI World Class University Faculty Exchange award.
2.
University of Pretoria, South Africa
Department of Electrical, Electronic and Computer Engineering
Dr. Xiaohua Xia, Professor
Formulated and executed a comprehensive partnership with the Faculty of Engineering, Built Environment and Information Technology, successfully negotiating its strategic four-year renewal in 2021. Core operational milestones include:
SABS Standards Advising: Presented “Development of Building Codes and Benchmarking Buildings, and Analysis of Cool Walls, Roofs, and Windows” to the South African Board of Standards (SABS) Codes Technical Committee (June 23, 2016).
National Award Finalist: Recognized as an Energy Project of the Year Finalist by the South African Association of Energy Efficiency (November 8–9, 2016, Gauteng) for the project “Energy Modeling Project for the Development of Energy Performance Levels in Buildings in the Republic of South Africa” alongside team members Howard Harris (SP Energy)
and Bipin Shah (WinBuild).
Technical Workshops & Summits: Conducted intensive building energy modeling training (June 13–15, 2016, Johannesburg) and presented at both the Smart Energy Technology Meeting (“Analysis of RDP Housing: Energy Efficiency Opportunities”) and the Powering South Africa with Cleaner & Smarter Energy Conference (“Energy Analysis to Identify Energy Efficiency Opportunities for RDP Houses in South Africa”).
Southeast University, Nanjing, China
3.
Department of Architecture
Dr. Changhai Peng, Professor
Mr. Junxue (Jerry) Zhang
(International Research Scholar, UrbSys Lab)
Collaborative Research Agenda:
Established a formal partnership with China’s #2-ranked Department of Architecture to anchor joint research initiatives and host long-term doctoral visiting scholars.
Developed and delivered a 2-credit-hour graduate short course titled “Architecture and Systems Ecology,” attended by 16 graduate students, utilizing personal authored textbook The Hierarchy of Energy in Architecture: Emergy Analysis (Routledge).
Collaborated on the joint development of a research proposal for the National Science Foundation of China (NSFC) and hosted doctoral student Mr. Jerry Zhang as an International Visiting Scholar at the UrbSys Lab for 12 months.
4.
Korea University, Seoul, South Korea
Invited by executive leadership in 2025 to establish a formal university-wide Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to launch collaborative faculty research initiatives and transnational student exchange programs.
5.
OSTIM Technical University, Turkiye
This new MoU will focus on potential collaborative research, opportunities for faculty and student development and exchange, exchange of academic publications and reports, sharing of experiences in innovative teaching methods and course design, and organization of joint symposia, workshops, and conferences.
6.
Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Roorkee, India
Structuring an active collaborative institutional agreement bridging architecture and construction management disciplines.
Hosted an IIT Roorkee Assistant Professor as a Visiting Faculty for a three-month residency under the prestigious BHAVAN Fellowship, and hosted Ph.D. student Mr. Tarun Kumar from the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) as an International Visiting Scholar for 6 months. Submitted a bilateral workshop proposal titled “Bilateral Workshop on Embodied Energy Assessment in Built Environment” to the Indo-US Science and Technology Forum and cosupervised a Master of Science thesis focusing on comparative high-rise residential embodied energy in the US and India (graduate student: Mr. Chundawat).
7.
University of Campinas (UNICAMP), Brazil
Partnered with Professor Vanessa Gomes to co supervise Ms. Giseli Colleto’s Ph.D. dissertation titled “BIM Mediation for Life Cycle Optimization,” hosting her at the UrbSys Lab under a prestigious Santander Scholarship award.