USC School of Architecture associate professor Dr. Joon-Ho Choi, his students Lingkai Cen and Xiaomeng Yao, and his USC faculty collaborators Shrikanth Narayanan (USC Viterbi), Yolanda Gil (USC ISI), and Maryann Pentz (USC Keck), won the young researcher best paper award at the 10th International Conference on Indoor Air Quality, Ventilation and Energy Conservation in Buildings in Bari, Italy in September 2019.

The award was given to the group’s paper titled “Personal Visual Comfort Model: Predict an Individual’s Visual Comfort Using Occupant Eye Pupil Sizes and Machine Learning.” This collaborative work focused on the visual environmental control using the principle of human-building integration as a function of human bio-signals. The project is based on Professor Choi’s current research sponsored by the NSF and EPA. Choi was invited to the U.S.A. Science and Engineering Festival in 2018 to disseminate the project’s prototyped wearable device-based lighting control to the general public. Additionally, Choi’s research and his team have been presented in multiple media, such as Voice of America, Los Angeles Daily News, and the Environmental Protection Agency’s newsletter. 

Dr. Choi currently leads the Human-Building Integration Research Group at USC and was recently appointed the associate dean of research and creative work in the USC School of Architecture. 

Click here for more information about the IAQVEC awards: www.iaqvec2019.org/award/