Brook Waldman is a research engineer at the Carbon Leadership Forum, where he investigates the life cycle of building materials — their manufacture, use, and end-of-life — and the environmental impacts that accompany those processes. He also studies and aims to improve the methodologies and data behind the measurement and communication of those environmental impacts. At the CLF, he has been particularly involved in supporting the EC3 tool and developing the CLF Material Baselines.
Lab/Center: Carbon Leadership Forum
Yang Shen
Yang Shen is a research engineer for the Carbon Leadership Forum at the University of Washington. Before joining CLF, he was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in George Mason University focusing on multidisciplinary research such as Computer Vision/Deep Learning applications in the Built Environment. Yang got his PhD in Civil Engineering (Structural Engineering) from Texas A&M University. His Ph.D. research was tightly associated with building science, embodied carbon quantification/optimization, building operational energy simulation, parametric modeling, structural analysis, data analytics, and machine learning. He is passionate about using interdisciplinary studies to achieve climate change adaptation and mitigation.
Anber Rana
Anber Rana is a Researcher with Carbon Leadership Forum.
Jordan Palmeri
Jordan Palmeri is a Senior Researcher on the policy team at Carbon Leadership Forum. He’s an interdisciplinary scientist and policy advisor focused on reducing the lifecycle impacts of building materials. He is an experienced leader and facilitator with demonstrated success at multiple project scales, and a systems thinker with practical implementation strategies for private and public sector initiatives. Prior to joining the CLF, Jordan was an Environmental Scientist and Policy Analyst for the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality.
Mel Chafart
Mel Chafart is a Researcher with the Carbon Leadership Forum where he is primarily focused on researching Whole Building Life Cycle Assessments. Prior to joining the CLF, Mel was a structural engineer at Buro Happold. There, he assisted in the design of steel and concrete structures in the US and abroad. He has worked on projects from concept design through construction administration. On the embodied carbon side, Mel has deep experience performing embodied carbon assessments and helped Buro Happold build out their portfolio of benchmarked projects. Outside of work, he enjoys watching soccer and baseball, woodworking, gardening, and tinkering with Raspberry Pis.
Milad Ashtiani
Milad Ashtiani is a Building and Materials Researcher with Carbon Leadership Forum. Milad is a civil engineer who received his PhD from the University of Washington in the summer of 2022. Milad is responsible for the execution of research and analysis, development of guidance documents and educational resources, and outreach across the design community to improve the quality, accuracy, and effectiveness of building performance tools, methods and data that address embodied carbon. As a building and materials researcher, Ashtiani works collaboratively with CLF’s internal research team as well as with architecture and engineering firms and research consortiums across North America with a focus on building performance, computation, embodied carbon assessments, and life cycle assessment (LCA).
Anthony Hickling
Anthony Hickling joins CLF with experience in environmental and social sustainability as well as nonprofit management and fundraising. His foundations in sustainable building are informed by experience at Presidio Graduate School where he received an MBA in Sustainable Solutions, as well as his work on the sustainability team at Webcor Builders in San Francisco. Through academic and professional experience he has learned to navigate the priorities of traditional business stakeholders while incorporating social and environmental externalities. From executing successful marketing plans to determining research priorities, Anthony believes that wide impact considerations and diversity of thought should be embedded into all decision-making.
Allison Hyatt
Allison Hyatt is a Researcher with the Carbon Leadership Forum at the University of Washington. Prior to joining the CLF, Allison oversaw the design development of various high performance buildings for public sector projects at Siegel & Strain Architects. With years of experience as an architect, she prioritizes forging links between architectural practice and research. As a graduate student, her research assessed metrics to compare among operational carbon savings, embodied carbon expenditures, and monetary costs of different decarbonization strategies over time. In the spring of 2022, she received her Masters degree in Design Studies with a concentration in Energy and Environment from the Harvard University Graduate School of Design.
Brad Benke
Brad Benke, AIA, is a Research Engineer at the Carbon Leadership Forum focused on developing data-driven resources to help practitioners and policymakers adopt and scale decarbonization strategies in the built environment. With a background in deep-green architecture and consulting, Brad works to synthesize and improve life cycle assessment practices and tools within the AEC industry and deliver practical solutions for low-carbon building design and construction. His recent work includes leading the CLF WBLCA Benchmark Study and developing the background data and methodologies for the CLF Embodied Carbon Policy Reduction Calculator. Brad is a former co-chair of AIA Seattle’s Committee on the Environment, and a former Senior Architect at McLennan Design, where he led diverse teams and stakeholders toward achieving decarbonization goals for buildings and organizations across the country.
Megan Kalsman
Megan Kalsman is a Policy Researcher with the Carbon Leadership Forum at the University of Washington. She specializes in advancing the procurement of low-carbon materials and informs the development and implementation of cross-sectoral climate policies targeting embodied carbon.
Before joining the CLF, Megan completed her Master of Science degree at Lund University in Sweden in Environmental Management and Policy with the International Institute for Industrial Environmental Economics. She published her thesis project in 2021, on the intersection of gender equality with different environmental issues like climate change, biodiversity, and chemicals on an international policy scale.
Prior to studying in Sweden, Megan coordinated environmental policies and programs for local government agencies in California with a focus on toxic chemical reduction and pollution prevention. She helped in developing the first in the nation ban on toxic flame retardant chemicals in San Francisco. This served as a model policy for the State of California and other states in the U.S. passing similar policies. Her undergraduate degree was in Environmental Studies at San Francisco State University with a minor in Urban Planning and the Built Environment.
Megan’s work at the CLF combines her environmental research experience and policy design background. She strives to frame her work with an intersectional lens each day – protecting the health of people and the environment in an equitable way. At the CLF, Megan enjoys interacting with a variety of stakeholders around embodied carbon policies and ultimately working together towards a more sustainable and just future.