IAQ4EDU: Optimal ventilation strategies for balancing Indoor Air Quality, comfort and energy use in EDUcational Buildings

About us

Research team

  • Dr. Marta Gangolells is the principal investigator of the IAQ4EDU project. She is full professor from the Department of Project and Construction Engineering at Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya - BarcelonaTech (UPC) since 2014 and a member of the GRIC- Group of Construction Research and Innovation. Her research expertise is related to improving the energy efficiency of buildings from multiple perspectives, including building renovation, applied ICT solutions for building automation and pro-environmental behaviours. Dr. Gangolells has participated in several EU funded research projects within the H2020 and FP7 programs, such as the EnerGAware project (2015-2018) and the SEAM4US project (2011-2014) and she successfully led the EOFF research project (Retos program 2016-2020). Dr. Gangolells has authored 43 papers in top-ranked international journals.
  • Dr. Pablo Pujadas is the co-principal investigator of this research project. He is an associate professor from the Department of Project and Construction Engineering at UPC since 2020. His main areas of interest are: energy efficiency, sustainability and resilience and decision-making in the built environment. Dr. Pujadas has been member of the research group in 9 R+D+I projects funded in national and autonomic competitive tenders.  He has also participated in 20 technology transfer projects with private companies, providing advanced scientific and career, since 2012 Dr. Pujadas has published more than 33 scientific papers in top-ranked peer-reviewed journals with an h index of 15 and an overall of 638 citations (according to Scopus).
  • Prof. Miquel Casals is a full professor at the UPC and coordinator of the GRIC from the beginning. He has coordinated several national and international research projects funded by the Spanish Government and the European Commission and has authored or co-authored more than 50 papers published in top-ranked journals. His main research field is improved building energy efficiency and thermal comfort. He is also an expert in reduced order models, especially focusing on indoor CO2 concentration and ventilation rates.
  • Dr. Kàtia Gaspar is an associate professor at the UPC since 2018 and a member of the GRIC. She is a building engineer (BArch) and organizational engineer (MSc) and PhD in Construction Engineering from the Department of Architectural Technology (UPC). Her main research is focused on thermal comfort and building modelling and performance. As a member of the UPC Building Laboratory, she has participated in pre-diagnostic tasks and evaluation of proposals for intervention of the building stock in several agreements with the Public Administration.
  • Dr. Lluc Canals Casals is a lecturer from the Department of Project and Construction Engineering at Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya - BarcelonaTech (UPC) since 2020. Doctor by the UPC in 2016), his research is in permanent touch with the advancements in energy storage technologies and uses contrasting them with their environmental and social impact. During his post-doc at IREC, he worked in regional, national and in (4) international H2020 projects. Additionally, he is the principal investigator in IREC of the EmpowerMed H2020 project (2019-2023).
  • Dr. Xavier Roca is an associate professor since 2012 and a member of the GRIC. Dr. Roca is currently the director of the School of Industrial, Aerospace and Audiovisual Engineering of Terrassa (ESEIAAT-UPC) and he is mainly involved in activities related to research knowledge transfer to private companies within the field of energy efficiency. He has two ‘six-year scientific productivity terms’ with several published papers resulting from his research work.
  • Dr. Francesc Pardo-Bosch is a MSc BSc in civil engineering by the UPC since 2009 and Ph.D. since 2014. He joined the Department of Project and Construction Engineering at UPC as a Serra Hunter lecturer professor in 2020. He was a Senior Research Development Manager and professor at ESADE Business School (2016-2020), where he led REPLICATE and mySMARTLIfe projects, two EU-funded Horizon2020 projects on smart cities. He has over 9 years’ experience in research projects, which have been focused on developing Multi-Criteria Decision-Making models in such diverse fields as the prioritization of investments, strategic planning, public governance or smart cities.  Dr. Pardo-Bosch has published 10 papers in top-ranked international journals. Additionally, in 2013, he founded Smart Engineering (UPC’s spin off), a strategy consulting firm dealing with civil engineering and smart cities.
  • Dr. Blanca Tejedor is an associate professor from the Department of Project and Construction Engineering at UPC. She is also a member of the GRIC and has a great expertise on experimental campaigns, especially related to infrared thermography and thermal comfort. She worked in the ConTerMa project, assessing the indoor thermal comfort of elderly care centres in the border of Spain and Portugal. 
  • Dr. Joan Tarragona is a lecturer in the DEPC at UPC since 2023 and member of the GRIC. His research focuses on reducing consumption and emissions in the building stock through the use of thermal energy storage systems and predictive control algorithms. He has participated in various national and international projects, being the author of 9 indexed articles.

Working team

 

  • Prof. Alberto Giretti is Full Professor at the Department of Civil, Building Engineering and Architecture of Università Politecnica delle Marche, in Italy. He is an expert on modelling indoor air carbon dioxide concentrations using reduced order models and improving buildings’ energy efficiency. Dr. Giretti has been conducting active and leading roles in national and international research projects since 1991. Among them, he participated in PROGETTO ZEMEDS – Promoting Renovation of Schools in a Mediterranean Climate up to Nearly-Zero Energy Buildings (COD. IEE/12/711/SI2.644745) within the Intelligent Energy Europe program– Call 2012. Dr. Giretti has published 109 scientific publications since 1992.
  • Dr. Ana Sofia Mendes is an integrated member at the Institute of Public Health, University of Porto and environmental health specialist at National Health Institute Dr. Ricardo Jorge (both in Portugal). Her current research addresses environmental, thermal and indoor air quality impacts on susceptible group populations. Among others, she is an active member of the research projects: (i) SHELD-ON - Indoor living space improvement: smart habitat for the elderly (2017-2021), (ii) ARIA - How indoor air quality can affect children allergies and asthma and (iii) ENVIRH – Environment and health in children day care centres.
  • Dr. Maria Nogal is an assistant professor at the Delft University of Technology (Netherlands). She is an expert on the field of operational research applied to different issues of engineering systems. She has broad experience in research projects under different funding programmes (i.e. the FP7 RAIN project and the H2020 RESILENS project). Dr Nogal has a proven track record of research achievement with more than 90 scientific publications and an H-index of 16 since 2013.
  • David Boix is a PhD student from Construction Engineering doctoral programme at UPC since September 2019 funded with a FPU PhD grant (FPU18/01471). His current research includes Multi Criteria Decision Making methods for the prioritization of public investments allocation, considering uncertain environments and multiple stakeholders’ opinion.
  • Jaume Ferré Bigorra is a PhD student from Construction Engineering doctoral programme at Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya - BarcelonaTech (UPC) since September 2020 funded with a FPU PhD grant (FPU19/04118). His current research includes the use of digital data to better manage existing buildings.
  • Jaume Enciso is the coordinator of the Urban Environmental Office of the Sabadell City Council since 2009. He has been involved in several H2020 projects (Triangulum, Einstein, etc.), and other EU funded initiatives such as DUSI (ERF funded). He is now participating in the CleanAirSchool project, a citizen-science initiative oriented to scholar air quality mapping, awarded with the II Premio Aire Más Limpio (2020).
  • Sen Miao is a full-time doctoral student funded by the China Scholarship Council (CSC) (202208390065). His thesis is related to the project and has participated in the monitoring campaign. He is the author of 3 articles related to the project and has been awarded with the Research Award for excellence 2023 by the City Council of Terrassa.
  • Juan Tugores holds the predoctoral contract of the project (PRE2021-099606, funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/5 011 00011033). His thesis is related to the project and has participated in the monitoring campaign. Is the author of one article related to the project and has been awarded with the Research Award for Excellence 2023 by the City Council of Terrassa.
  • María Maiques graduated in Industrial Technology Engineering from the UPC. She is currently studying a master's degree in Industrial Engineering and works as research support staff in the IAQ4EDU project.
  • Laia Casals graduated in Industrial Technology Engineering from the UPC. She is currently studying a master's degree in Industrial Engineering and works as research support staff in the IAQ4EDU project.