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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).

Vincent Javet

Vincent is a Swiss-Canadian designer, researcher, and educator trained as a landscape architect (MLA, University of Toronto) and urban planner (BURPl, Toronto Metropolitan University). He serves as Assistant Teaching Professor in Landscape Architecture at the University of Washington, where he focuses on fieldwork, experimentation, and cross-disciplinary study to understand the ecology, craft, and traditions of places at all scales and sites, on the spectrum from rural to urban, regional to material, and non-human to human.

Vincent maintains a practice with Unknown Studio Landscape Architecture and Urban Design (Baltimore) and has previously worked in Canada, Europe, and the United States with offices including West 8 Urban Design and Landscape Architecture (Rotterdam/New York City) and North Design Office (Toronto). In addition to his international design experience, Vincent has held research positions with Platform for Resilient Urbanism, the Green Roof Information Testing Laboratory (GRIT Lab) at the University of Toronto, and Green Roofs for Healthy Cities.

Among other accomplishments, Vincent has been a Landscape Architecture Foundation CSI Faculty Research Fellow and was an exhibiting artist at the 2021 Seoul Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism for his collaborative project “Beneath the City, Rivers”. His work has been published in Ground Magazine, Landscape Architecture Magazine, Living Architecture Monitor, Symposium on Simulation for Architecture and Urban Design (SimAUD), Architecture, Media, Politics, Society (AMPS), Journal of Digital Landscape Architecture (JoDLA) and the Harvard Graduate School of Design’s studio publication, Frontier City: Strategies for Boston Harbor.

Amos Darko

Dr. Darko brings with him a wealth of expertise and experience in sustainability, sustainable built environment, sustainable construction, green building, modular construction, project management, and digital technologies including building information modeling and artificial intelligence.

Dr. Darko earned his Ph.D. degree from The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) in 2019, and his BSc degree (First Class Honors) from Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) in 2014. Before joining the University of Washington, Dr. Darko was a Research Assistant Professor at PolyU.

Dr. Darko has published numerous papers in leading international peer-reviewed journals, conferences, and books. His papers have been rated as highly cited and hot papers by the Web of Science. His paper is the most cited paper of all time in the International Journal of Construction Management. He has also been ranked among the world’s top 2% most cited scientists by Elsevier BV and Stanford University. Dr. Darko has received several awards for his outstanding work, including the Green Talents Award from the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research in 2020, the Global Top Peer Reviewer Award from the Web of Science Group in 2019, the Outstanding Overseas Young Scholars Award from Central South University in 2019, and the Best Construction Technology and Management Student Award from KNUST in 2014.

Dr. Darko’s work has been supported by the Research Grants Council of Hong Kong, Chief Secretary for Administration’s Office of Hong Kong, and several internal grants.

Dr. Darko is an Associate Editor of Green Building and Construction Economics, an Associate Editor of Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, and an Academic Editor of Advances in Civil Engineering.

“I am excited to collaborate with colleagues from diverse disciplines to tackle the pressing challenges of sustainability and climate change, and to contribute to shaping a more just and beautiful world,” said Dr. Darko.

CBE Research Restart Funding: Progress and Updates

The College of Built Environments awarded Research Restart funding to multiple project teams in 2022. Below are descriptions of their progress and project status to-date. July 2022 Cohort: Arthur Acolin received funding for their project entitled “Accessory Dwelling Units as Potential Source of Affordable Housing Across Generations.” A no-cost extension was approved in May 2023 due to delays in implementing the survey for the project. In July 2023, design of the survey instrument and postcards was completed, and next steps…

Population Health Initiative awards multiple College of Built Environments teams planning grants

The Population Health Initiative announced 12 climate change planning grant awardees. Of those 12 teams, 4 include College of Built Environments researchers. Descriptions of their projects are below. Read the CBE News story here.   Linking Climate Adaptation and Public Health Outcomes in Yavatmal, Maharashtra Investigators Sameer H. Shah, Environmental and Forest Sciences Celina Balderas Guzmán, Landscape Architecture Pronoy Rai, Portland State University Project abstract This proposal collects primary interview data with landed and landless agriculturalists in Yavatmal district in…

Campus Sustainability Fund selects College of Built Environments researchers for 2022-2023 work

The Campus Sustainability Fund selected College of Built Environments PhD student Daniel Dimitrov, along with Associate Dean for Research Carrie Sturts Dossick, to receive funding for the project described below. Energy, Information, and the New Work of Building Operations in the Digital Age Amount Awarded: $19,833 Funding Received: 2022-2023 Project Summary: The built environment industry is in the midst of a data revolution paired with a drive for sustainable campus operations. Innovation, information, communication access, and integration provide an opportunity…

CBE researchers selected for inaugural cohort of Urban@UW Research to Action Collaboratory

College of Built Environments researchers are selected for inaugural cohort of the Urban@UW Research to Action Collaboratory (RAC). Throughout the next 18 months, Urban@UW will work with these teams and provide seed funds, dedicated time to build team cohesion and collaboration skills, and foster opportunities for peer support and shared resources and learning. The project below was one of two projects selected for this cohort. See the full story here. Just Circular Communities: A Resiliency Framework to Support a Just…

College of Built Environments Faculty and Student receive Husky Sustainability Awards 2023

The Husky Sustainability Awards recognize individuals and groups across all University of Washington campuses who lead the way for sustainability at the University of Washington. This is the 14th year awards have been given by the UW Environmental Stewardship Committee. The Husky Sustainability Awards are given to students, faculty and staff from the Seattle, Bothell and Tacoma campuses who show impact, initiative, leadership and dedication around sustainability. Congratulations to the recipients from the College of Built Environments, who are listed below….