Doctor Laura Melo c e de Almeida

Dr Laura Almeida joined the School of Built Environment at Western Sydney University in January 2021, as an Associate Lecturer in Building Design Management/Construction Management. Her expertise and experience are in several areas critical to environmental health, including energy use, occupant behaviour, sustainability, and embodied carbon. 

Dr Almeida obtained her PhD in Energy-related Occupant Behaviour from Western Sydney University in 2020. Before In 2008, she earned a Pre Bologna Masters in Mechanical Engineering in the field of Renewable Energy from the Faculty of Engineering of Porto University, and in 2001 a Bachelor (honours) of Chemical Engineering in the field of Energy Management, from the Polytechnic of Porto - School of Engineering, Portugal. Laura is a Sustainability Professional interested in reducing the human impact and use of energy in the built environment, facilitating sustainable solutions, and understanding behavioural patterns that can positively impact the mitigation of climate change. She is passionate about nature, human behaviour, green buildings, energy efficiency, renewable energies and sustainability. She started her career in 2001, under the European student exchange programme Erasmus, in Ghent Belgium, in the field of energy efficiency. She gained experience in Sustainability, Energy Management/Efficiency and Renewable Energies, as a Sustainability and Energy Consultant during her professional life. 

After 2008, she was involved in the certification process of more than 100 buildings according to the European Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD), along with Environmentally Sustainable Design (ESD) consultancy. In 2010, she was working at the AdEPorto and was part of the team involved in the Sustainable Energy Action Plan (SEAP) for Porto, Portugal, in line with the European Covenant of Mayors for Climate & Energy. To reinforce her capabilities in the previous fields, she obtained the LEED Green Associate in 2013. She was involved in the certification process of the EPB, LEED and bEQ systems, while in Portugal, and in the Green Star, ISCA and BASIX certification systems after 2016, in Sydney. Throughout her career, Laura gained experience in building simulation, energy and indoor environment quality (IEQ) audits, HVAC design project, energy and sustainability assessment, embodied carbon and energy evaluation and calculation and social analysis. 

Additionally, as a Warehouse Manager, Quality Manager, Project Manager and from 2011 to 2016 as a Managing Partner of her own company in the area of Sustainable Engineering, she gained experience in Management and the implementation of Quality, Environment and Health & Safety systems, aligned with the ISO and OHSAS standards. After 2017, while completing her doctoral program, Laura published several journal articles and conference papers based on her research. She supervised honours student involved in Occupant Behaviour and assisted as a researcher and sessional academic, teaching several Building Design and Construction Management and Project Management units. 

Dr Almeida plans to continue her current body of work, but desires to expand her research and industry engagement into other areas such as cultural factors, pandemic effects on sustainability and using nature as a teacher.

This information has been contributed by Doctor Melo c e de Almeida.