Prof Anna Laura Pisello
University of Perugia, ItalyBuilding-to-Urban Climate, Health and Resilience through Human Adaptation and Innovative Mitigation Solutions
Abstract:
Climate change and urbanization are intensifying overheating risks across cities worldwide, with significant implications for human health, wellbeing, energy demand, and environmental resilience. Addressing these challenges requires moving beyond technology-centered approaches towards human-centric frameworks capable of integrating environmental monitoring, citizen engagement, behavioral adaptation, and innovative mitigation solutions.
This keynote presents recent advances in the development of multisensory and human-centered urban environments as living laboratories for understanding and improving the interactions between people, buildings, and urban climate. Through the integration of environmental sensing, physiological monitoring, data analytics, digital modeling, and citizen science approaches, urban spaces can become platforms for co-generating knowledge and supporting adaptive responses to climate-related stressors. The same stressors may be mostly mitigated by passive cooling solutions in urban heat islands, therefore particular attention is then devoted to the role of radiative cooling materials and innovative technologies. The presentation highlights how the effectiveness of radiative cooling and other passive mitigation strategies should be evaluated not only through physical and energy-performance indicators, but also through their impacts on human perception, physiological responses, comfort, wellbeing, and adaptive behavior. Examples from European and international research projects demonstrate how citizen-centered monitoring, participatory assessment, wearable sensing technologies, and community engagement can support the large-scale implementation and societal acceptance. By bridging building physics, urban climate science, advanced materials, environmental health, and citizen science, the talk proposes a new paradigm for climate adaptation: one in which innovative mitigation technologies and human adaptation processes are jointly designed to foster healthier, more resilient, and climate-responsive cities.
Biography:
Anna Laura Pisello is Full Professor of Building Physics and Energy Systems at the University of Perugia (Italy), where she founded and leads EAPLAB - Environmental Applied Physics Laboratory. She coordinates the PhD Programme in Energy and Sustainable Development, serves as Deputy to the Rector's Delegate for Doctoral Studies, and is Vice President of ITATEC - the Italian Academy for Engineering and Technology.
After earning her PhD in Energy Engineering in 2013, she conducted research at Columbia University, Virginia Tech, and the City University of New York, and has been a Visiting Research Associate at Princeton University since 2018.
Prof. Pisello has authored more than 250 peer-reviewed publications, received over 10 international scientific awards, and was recognized as Best Editor of the Year 2023 by Solar Energy. She currently leads several European research initiatives, including an ERC Starting Grant (HELIOS) and its ERC Proof of Concept, focused on novel radiative cooling technologies for climate-resilient buildings and cities.
Her research integrates advanced materials, building-to-urban climate dynamics, human-centered environmental design, and sustainable energy solutions to address urban overheating, climate adaptation, environmental wellbeing, and resilience in the built environment.
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