Meet the Healthy Buildings Team

Master's Student with the Healthy Buildings Programs

Keith is a Master of Science candidate in Environmental Health: Occupational Health at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. His research interests broadly include sustainability, occupational health & safety and pediatric environmental health.

His current research role focuses on childhood lead poisoning prevention and geospatial analysis at the New England Pediatric Environmental Health Specialty Unit (PEHSU), based at Boston Children’s Hospital. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he previously served as a frontline healthcare worker at a dermatology clinic in Western Massachusetts. He solidified his commitment to the field of public health after completing internships at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.

Keith completed his BS in Global & Public Health Sciences and Demography at Cornell University.

Research Associate with the Healthy Buildings Program

Parham Azimi’s research focuses on the fate, transport, and control of indoor aerosols of indoor and ambient origin, the chronic health impacts of fine and ultrafine particles, and the transmission of infectious diseases. Currently, he is evaluating the transmission risk of infectious respiratory diseases, including influenza, measles, and Covid-19, in various indoor environments such as cruise ships, schools, and healthcare facilities using a newly-developed mechanistic model. In addition, he is working on the impacts of flood and building characteristics on mold growth and occupational respiratory health in residential buildings.

Parham joined the Healthy Buildings Program in 2019 after two years of working as a research associate in the Department of Civil, Architectural, and Environmental Engineering at the Illinois Institute of Technology, where he also received his Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering in 2016. He earned his M.Sc. degree in Environmental Engineering in 2012 and a B.Sc. degree in Civil Engineering in 2010, both from the Department of Civil Engineering at Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, Iran.

Co-PI of the CoBE Project

Jonathan Buonocore, Sc.D. is an Assistant Professor at the Boston University School of Public Health. His research mainly focuses on evaluating the health impacts of energy systems, and modeling health “co-benefits” of climate mitigation strategies and energy policies.

He has evaluated air pollution related health impacts from a number of sectors, including electricity generation, transportation, buildings, and oil and gas production. He has also modeled the health co-benefits of strategies including further buildout of renewable energy in the United States, Federal carbon emissions standards on power plants, carbon cap-and-invest policies for transportation in the Northeast U.S., and building electrification.

Currently, he is developing methods to better incorporate equity and environmental justice (EJ) concerns into climate and energy policy assessments, along with evaluating other possible unintended consequences. He is also leading work evaluating exposed populations, infrastructure quality, and potential health impacts around underground natural gas storage facilities, pipelines, and other “midstream” infrastructure, along with evaluating novel technologies to decarbonize building heating.

Postdoctoral Fellow with the Healthy Buildings Program

Lauren Ferguson is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow with the Healthy Buildings Program. Lauren holds a PhD in Environmental Engineering from University College London (UCL), UK, where she built a personal exposure model which estimated childhood exposure to PM_2.5 for 1.3 million individuals in Greater London. The tool can be used to assess a number of “soft” (for example, behavioral modifications) and “hard” (for example, building interventions) policy interventions on childhood exposure to air pollution.

Lauren’s interests lie in using building physics and statistical models to assess population-level exposures to indoor environmental hazards, such as heat and air pollution, and understanding how these exposures lead to health impacts and inequalities. In addition to her doctoral research, she has applied these techniques to study population exposure to household air pollution in Nairobi’s informal settlements and predict the extent of indoor overheating the UK housing stock may face under future climate scenarios. The goal of her work with the Healthy Buildings Program is to continue her research into indoor heat, where she will be building a US-based housing stock model.

Master's Student with the Healthy Buildings Programs

Analise is a NIOSH ERC Trainee and Master of Science candidate in Environmental Health: Occupational Health at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Her interests broadly include building science and worker safety in high-risk work environments.

Before entering the graduate program, Analise worked in the San Francisco Bay Area as an associate industrial hygienist for a small consulting firm. Her continuing education in that role included OSHA HAZWOPER 40, EPA/AHERA Building Inspector and Contractor Supervisor, CDPH Lead Inspector/Risk Assessor, and courses in infrared thermography and mold investigation. Her daily work included a variety of building science surveys, sampling, and site monitoring at demolition and renovation projects.

Analise earned a BA in Environmental Earth Science at UC Berkeley.

Research Assistant with the Healthy Buildings Program

Zahra Keshavarz’s research focuses on the assessment of hazardous emissions such as aldehydes and methylglyoxal from electronic cigarettes, evaluating the effectiveness of infection control strategies in indoor environments using low-cost sensors, and mold growth assessment in submerged residential buildings after hurricanes and other catastrophic events. Currently, she is monitoring the indoor air quality (IAQ) and effectiveness of ventilation and filtration systems in several healthcare facilities in Boston, MA and assessing mold growth in residential buildings in New Orleans, LA and Orlando, FL after Hurricane Ida and Ian.

Zahra holds a B.Sc. in civil engineering and an M.Sc. in structural engineering. Her graduate research work was focused on applications of artificial intelligence techniques in predicting building characteristics. She also has a background in indoor environmental engineering. Before joining the for-Health team, Zahra worked as an indoor air consultant at Indoor Science in Chicago, IL.

Graduate Research Assistant with the CoBE Project

Victoria McCrary is a Ph.D. student at the Sustainable, Healthy, and Resilient Buildings Lab at Oregon State University, working with Dr. Parichehr Salimifard as her adviser. Victoria’s research interests are sustainable buildings, building electrification, and indoor air quality.

Before joining Oregon State University, Victoria earned her Bachelors of Science in Computer Engineering from The Pennsylvania State University.

Postdoctoral Fellow with the Healthy Buildings Program

Seongjun Park is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow with the Healthy Buildings Program. His research focuses on building science, indoor air quality, low-cost particle sensors, residential ventilation systems, indoor chemistry, and the control of infectious diseases. During his PhD, he worked on controlling airborne diseases using germicidal UV (GUV) systems and studied the formation of secondary contaminants associated with GUV disinfection using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). Before his PhD program, Seongjun worked as a building engineer at one of Korea’s leading sustainable building consulting firms, participating in over 100 projects. His responsibilities included stack effect analysis, indoor thermal comfort simulation, and testing, adjusting, and balancing (TAB).

Seongjun holds a Ph.D. in Architectural Engineering at Pennsylvania State University, an M.Sc. in Architecture and Architectural Engineering at Seoul National University, and a B.Sc. in Architectural Engineering at Yonsei University.

PhD Candidate with the Healthy Buildings Program

Shivani is a PhD candidate in Population Health Sciences in the Department of Environmental Health at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and has been a member of the Healthy Buildings Team for the past four years. Her interests center on leveraging translational research on healthy building strategies—cutting across air quality, material health, and energy efficiency—to bridge the existing gap between communities, private organizations, and government and ultimately create healthier physical and social environments for people to live, work, learn, and play.

She earned her MS in Environmental Health at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and her BA in Chemistry and Health & Societies at Haverford College.

Research Associate with the Healthy Buildings Program

Gen Pei’s research focuses on building science, indoor air quality, infectious disease transmission, building materials, and energy-efficient and resilient buildings. Currently, he is working on developing effective interventions to mitigate infectious diseases transmission in buildings, and quantifying the health and climate benefits of energy-saving measures in buildings. His doctoral research established a measurement and Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) modeling framework to understand pollutant transport, fate, chemical reaction, and control in indoor environments. The goal of his research is to advance our knowledge of developing healthy, smart, sustainable, and resilient buildings.

Gen holds a Ph.D. and an M.Sc. in Architectural Engineering at Pennsylvania State University, and a B.Sc. in Building Environment and Energy Engineering at Xi’an Jiaotong University.

Research Data Analyst with the CoBE Program

Erin is a research data analyst, working with Jonathan Buonocore at the Boston University School of Public Health. Her interests lie at the intersection of local and state climate mitigation strategies, health-informed decarbonization plans, and adaptation efforts that benefit both human and ecosystem health. Her current work involves researching the health impacts of the oil and gas industry, understanding methane contributions from natural gas distribution systems, and assisting CoBe to calculate emissions losses associated with building pipe main infrastructure. Erin has her Bachelors in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and her Master’s in Public Health.

Co-PI of the CoBE Project

Dr. Parichehr Salimifard is an Assistant Professor at the School of Civil and Construction Engineering at Oregon State University.

As a Co-PI of the Co-benefits of Built Environment (CoBE) project, she is leading the CoBE team at Oregon State University and collaborating with other CoBE team members at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Boston University School of Public Health. The teams are working closely together to develop the next versions of CoBE tool and its various modules including co-benefits of specific climate policies, water savings co-benefits of built environment, energy conservation pathway optimization, and building-to-grid integration.

At Oregon State University, Dr. Salimifard leads the Sustainable, Healthy, And Resilient Buildings Lab. The lab’s research projects have crossovers to fluid dynamics, aerosol science, energy efficiency, sustainability, and environmental health. One of the core research areas is indoor environmental quality, particularly control and mitigation of building occupants’ exposure to contaminants and allergen- and virus-carrier particles indoors. Dr. Salimifard has conducted research on aerosols dynamics and sensing; more specifically on particle transport, deposition, resuspension, and aerosol sensing and size characterization. The most recent and emergent contributions of these research projects are in COVID-19 exposure mitigation and control. She has also worked on building energy modeling and investigating the trade-offs between the energy conservation measures installation and indoor air quality.

Before joining Oregon State University, Dr. Salimifard was a postdoctoral fellow with the Healthy Buildings Program at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. She earned her Ph.D. and M.Sc. in Architectural Engineering – Mechanical Option with a minor in Computational Science at Penn State University. She earned her B.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering with a focus on fluid mechanics and heat transfer from Persian Gulf University.

Master's Student with the Healthy Buildings Programs

Gadea is a Master of Science candidate in Environmental Health, Climate, and Sustainability at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Her interests include sustainable building design, climate resilience, and the integration of health-focused strategies into urban development.

She previously worked as an Associate in Sustainability and ESG at Beacon Capital Partners, a real estate investment firm, where she implemented a customized framework focused on promoting healthy indoor environments. Additionally, she was responsible for driving and implementing high-impact ESG strategies and processes at a corporate level, ensuring a coordinated and consistent approach to sustainability goals across the building portfolio.

Gadea earned both her BA and MA in Architecture from Universidad CEU San Pablo, followed by an MBA from the University of Oxford. During her time at Oxford, she served as a Venture Consultant, where she evaluated potential target markets for a sustainable building materials startup.

Research Assistant with the CoBE Project

Brian is a Research Assistant for the Co-Benefits of the Build Environment (CoBE) study, which focuses on quantifying energy savings and health and climate co-benefits of improving sustainability in the built environment. He is currently working on development for the CoBE tool and the implementation of future features.

Brian graduated in 2020 from Northeastern University with a B.S. in Applied Physics. His interests focus on the impacts of climate change on the environment and health, and how we can work to mitigate these impacts through a public health lens.

Project Engineer with the Healthy Buildings Program

Jose Vallarino is a project engineer in the Department of Environmental Health at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. He has over 25 years’ experience managing exposure studies focused on indoor and ambient environmental air quality. He has collaborated in research projects in the US, Africa, Asia and Europe. He, provides oversight of sampling protocols, designs monitoring platforms, and serves as the QA officer for several HSPH research center grants. He also provides guidance on research administration in areas of Human Subjects, Data Use Agreements and Data Security.

Undergraduate Student with the Healthy Buildings Programs

Emily is an undergraduate at Harvard College studying global health, environmental science, and mathematics. She’s passionate about connecting science and society to inform policy: for the past three years, she has gained experience researching tobacco control policy at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and equitable energy transitions in the NSF REM and the Harvard-China Project programs. She’s excited to be contributing to projects in the Healthy Buildings Program, and to forward public health knowledge that can create more just built environments.