Biographical Sketches

Dr. Dale Brentrup

Dr. Brentrup has a great deal of experience with
interdisciplinary approaches to human behavior, energy usage,
and occupant comfort in buildings. Dr. Brentrup is a tenured
professor in the College of Arts and Architecture at the
University of North Carolina at Charlotte, particularly focused
on Architecture. Most notably, Dr. Brentrup is the director of the
Center for Integrated Building Design Research and the
Daylighting and Building Energy Performance Laboratory in

Image: coaa.uncc.edu

the School of Architecture within the College of Art and Architecture. He is also connected with
Lee College of Engineering at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte as a senior research
fellow at the Infrastructure Design Environment and Sustainability Center within the college. As
such, he is well-versed in bringing together ideas from Architecture and Engineering to
contribute to research in human behavior and energy usage within commercial enterprises. Dr.
Brentrup is also involved in the American Solar Energy Society and the Society of Building
Science Educators. He is also a leading figure in the Daylighting and Daylighting Metrics
committees within the Illuminating Engineering Society of North America.
Specifically, Dr. Brentrups expertise is focused on daylighting, energy usage of
occupants and its reflection on sustainability, and especially developing simulations that allow
building occupants to see their energy usage and develop new habits that will improve their
energy usage. These areas of research clearly combine human behavior, energy levels, and
occupant comfort in a larger picture that ultimately benefits the environment, the occupants of
buildings that are studied, and the companies and organizations that want to improve their
energy usage while maintaining a high level of occupant comfort. His research connects
different areas of research in an effort to analyze energy usage within public spaces and

commercial buildings, help businesses and organization maintain a high level of comfort for
occupants (including employees and guests), and use simulations and workshops to encourage
the occupants to do their part in being more energy efficient. In turn, this encourages personal
responsibility concerning individuals behaviors while keeping this in the bigger picture of energy
usage within buildings, which then impacts the environment itself. (coaa.uncc.edu)

Dr. Mona Azarbayjani

Dr. Mona Azarbayjani is an Assistant Professor at the
Integrated Design Labs, Energy Performance Laboratory of the
UNC Charlotte School of Architecture, where she is currently
teaching comprehensive studios, core building technology
course, energy modeling, and interactive envelope seminars.
Her focus in research is on the energy performance of
buildings, the study of thermal comfort with new technologies,
and climate-responsive building design.

Image: coaa.uncc.edu

Dr. Azarbayjani received the B.Arch. and M.Arch. degrees (with highest distinction) from
the University of Science and Technology (IUST), Tehran, Iran, and a Ph.D. degree from the
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), in Architecture-Building Technology. Dr.
Azarbayjani is the recipient of the 2006-2007 UIUC Merit Scholarship in Architecture and the
scholastic excellence honor during 2008-2009 at UIUC. She is also the recipient of the
Exceptional Talents Fellowship from University of Science and Technology. She is a Member of
Phi Kappa Phi Honor Society by election of the chapter at the University of Illinois, a LEED AP
with the U.S. Green Building Council and a member of ASHRAE, American Society of Heating,
Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers, as well as a member of the Building Technology
Educator Society (BTES), Society of Building Science Educators (SBSE), and International
Building Performance Simulation Association (IBPSA) .

She was the lead PI of a Department of Energy/NREL grant to design, build, and operate
a zero-energy house for the 2013 Solar Decathlon at the Orange County Great Park in Irvine,
California, in October 2013. As the lead faculty and project manager, she collaborated with
hundreds of students, faculty, and industry partners in garnering the People's Choice Award,
eighth place in Architecture, and third place in the Engineering competition. (coaa.uncc.edu)

Dr. Julia Day

Dr. Julia Day currently teaches in the interior design
program at Kansas State University in the College of Human
Ecology. She has recently started her research laboratory at KState: The Energy, Behavior and Built Environment Laboratory
(EBBEL). Her areas of specialization include occupant
behavior and energy efficiency, daylighting design, and post
occupancy evaluation. Her interdisciplinary Ph.D. from
Washington State University, current research, professional
service and consulting expertise primarily focus on occupant

Image: www.he.k-state.edu

education, behaviors and energy use in high performance buildings.

Day received her B.A. and M.A. in Interior Design from Washington State University.
Between these two degrees, she received a M.B.A. in Sustainability from the San Francisco
Institute of Architecture. Finally, she received her Ph.D. in Architecture, Interior Design and
Education in the interdisciplinary doctoral program at Washington State University.
Day is actively involved in several international and national organizations including the
IEA (International Energy Agency) Energy in Buildings and Communities Programme (EBC)
Annex 66: an international effort to define and simulate occupant behavior in buildings, the
ASHRAE Technical Committee 7.3 (Operations and Maintenance Management) / Education and
Training Sub-committee, and the ASME National Science Foundation (NSF) Research

Coordination Network (RCN) on Sustainable Human-Building Ecosystems (SHBE). Day's

professional experience includes retail design work at Callison Architecture in Seattle,
Washington, editorial assistant for "Interiors: Design, Architecture, Culture," and project
manager at both Washington State University and the University of Idaho's Integrated Design
Labs, where she worked closely with Idaho Power Company (IPC) and Northwest Energy
Efficiency Alliance (NEEA) on energy efficiency outreach, training and market transformation.
(www.he.k-state.edu/)
Dr. Elizabeth Stearns (image: clas-pages.uncc.edu
Dr. Elizabeth Stearns earned her Ph.D. at UNC-Chapel
Hill. Her research efforts revolve around the central question of
stratification research including who gets what and why do
they get it? In her research, she has used this essential
question to gain a better understanding of her substantive
areas of education and race and ethnicity. Thus, her research
agenda has two main areas: (1) educational processes, both academic and non-academic, and
(2) interracial relations in changing demographic contexts. In general, she investigates how
inequality, particularly racial and ethnic inequality, is generated and sustained in the American
educational system. (clas-pages.uncc.edu)
Dr. Stearns was the lead principal investigator in the ROOTS of STEM project. This twophase project investigated the institutional factors that influence womens and underrepresented
minorities decision to pursue STEM majors. The first phase employed quantitative methods and
a unique longitudinal dataset, the ROOTS of STEM dataset, following one cohort of North
Carolina public school students from middle school to high school and into the public university
system in NC. The second phase used interviews with current UNC-system college seniors to

understand their experiences with math and science in middle and high school and in college.
(clas-pages.uncc.edu/rootsofstem/)
Dr. Gregory Wickliff (image: https://claspages.uncc.edu/gregory-a-wickliff/)
Dr. Gregory Wickliff is an Associate Professor of English
in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of
North Carolina at Charlotte. He is also the Coordinator of the
English Departments Technical & Professional Writing Programs.
His recent research has been focused on the rhetoric of
nineteenth-century American photography in scientific and
technical texts, and he is at work on a book on the subject. His research interests have also
included technical/professional writing, visual rhetoric, the history of science, the history of
photography, environmental science/policy, and American literature.
Dr. Wickliff received a M.A. and Ph.D. from Purdue University. He was the Resident
Scholar in the Dibner Library for the History of Science and Technology at the Smithsonian
Institution in the summer of 2014, as well as the Lemelson Center Fellow at the National
Museum of American History in the Smithsonian Institution during the summer of 2010. (claspages.uncc.edu)

Links Needing to be Cited (dont forget to cite the images, too!):

http://coaa.uncc.edu/people/dale-brentrup
http://coaa.uncc.edu/people/mona-azarbayjani
http://www.he.k-state.edu/atid/faculty-staff/juliakday/
https://clas-pages.uncc.edu/elizabeth-stearns/
https://clas-pages.uncc.edu/rootsofstem/
https://clas-pages.uncc.edu/gregory-a-wickliff/

https://clas-pages.uncc.edu/dast/blog/projects/greg-wickliff/