UCL-Energy researcher Virginia Gori has been awarded an EPSRC Doctoral Prize Fellowship to study ‘Bayesian Building Physics: The Rapid Characterisation of Dynamic Building Heat Loss’. This award supports fellowships of two years’ duration for exceptional researchers who have recently finished an EPSRC-funded PhD. They are prestigious fellowships that are intended to provide support for outstanding candidates who are beginning to develop independent research careers.

Virginia completed her PhD with the EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Energy Demand (LoLo), developing a novel grey-box dynamic method for the characterisation of the thermophysical performance of in-situ building elements. She said:

Being part of a cutting-edge yet supportive environment like the Physical Characterisation of Buildings research group, the EPSRC LoLo CDT and the UCL Energy Institute has given me opportunities that have been a major factor in this success - I'm very grateful to everyone I’ve interacted with during the past four years.

Virginia’s fellowship research will build on and expand a combination of methods and techniques pioneered during her doctoral studies as part of the “Physical Characterisation of Buildings” group led by Dr Cliff Elwell at the UCL Energy Institute. She proposes a novel dynamic method for the rapid and robust characterisation of building heat loss. It aims at reducing the time, disruption and cost for performance characterisation of buildings using in-situ measurements. This could help to address the performance gap between the expected and real energy use of buildings that is often observed and could widen the application of as-built testing, potentially providing new regulatory and business opportunities.

Dr Cliff Elwell, Deputy Director of LoLo said:

We are delighted that Virginia has been awarded an EPSRC Doctoral Prize Fellowship. This is an excellent opportunity to develop her research on a topic that has the potential for significant impact. Virginia has played a very active role in the CDT, though peer-to-peer learning, engaging with industry, policy makers and the public. We believe she has a bright future and look forward to working with her at the Energy Institute for a further 2 years