Erica Cochran Hameen
Assistant Professor Carnegie Mellon University
- Pittsburgh PA
Erica Cochran Hameen's architectural experience includes over 50 educational, media and broadcast, community, and transportation facilities.
Biography
Erica serves as an instructor for multiple graduate and undergraduate courses and recently developed a new course focused on energy efficient and healthy retrofits. Formerly, she was Program Director for the UDream program at CMU, which from 2009-2016 worked to increase diversity in the urban design profession nationally, and in the Pittsburgh region specifically, by offering opportunities for permanent employment in Pittsburgh to recent college graduates.
Erica has served as a studio critic at multiple universities. Her architectural experience includes over 50 educational, media and broadcast, residential, community, and transportation facilities. She is also an active member of several community service and non-profit organizations.
Erica has received numerous honors for her research and architectural design project participation including awards from the AIA, NY Landmarks Conservancy, Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce, Faculty and Graduate Student Awards, and most recently Best Proposal in a Department of Energy (DOE) Competition presented at the White House Conference Room.
Erica holds a Bachelor of Architecture from Virginia Tech, and a Master of Science in Sustainable Design and a Ph.D. in Building Performance & Diagnostics from CMU. Erica’s doctoral research investigated the impact of school building and neighborhood physical and environmental characteristics on student and teacher health and performance. She is also a contributing researcher for a Sustainable Engineering textbook and served as one of the Principal Investigators for the Consortium for Building Energy Innovation (CBEI), formally the EEB Hub, established by the DOE as an Energy-Regional Innovation Cluster.
Areas of Expertise
Media Appearances
What your future office could look like — if you even need to be there
The Washington Post online
2022-06-21
We asked workplace experts Cappelli and Erica Cochran Hameen, co-director of Carnegie Mellon University’s Center for Building Performance and Diagnostics, to evaluate the five ideas companies have developed to reimagine the traditional office. Below are the concepts, their key features and what our experts thought.
Top public officials and experts on building sustainable cities
The Washington Post online
2023-04-05
Cities around the globe are investing in new sustainable initiatives to reap the economic and environmental benefits for their communities. Join Washington Post Live for a series of conversations with White House Council on Environmental Quality chair Brenda Mallory and Maryland Lt. Gov. Aruna Miller (D) about building greener cities and addressing historical environmental inequities. BlocPower CEO Donnel Baird, Carnegie Mellon School of Architecture’s Erica Cochran Hameen and New Urban Mobility Alliance director Harriet Tregoning will also discuss the role of buildings in designing more sustainable cities.
11 local winners announced for 2021 AIA Pennsylvania Architectural Excellence Awards
NEXTpittsburgh online
2021-12-21
Erica Cochran Hameen, Ph.D., received an Impact Designer Award in the category of Architectural Excellence Special Awards. Hameen is the inaugural department director of diversity, equity and inclusion, the track chair of the doctor of professional practice program and assistant professor at Carnegie Mellon University.
Erica Cochran Hameen: A Half Dozen Students Can Lead a Revolution
Architect Magazine online
2021-06-11
Here, Carnegie Mellon University assistant professor Erica Cochran Hameen, Assoc. AIA, shares how this past year has strengthened her resolve to seek equitable outcomes for students and the profession at large through her research and leadership. Cochran Hameen is also the incoming director or diversity, equity, and inclusion at the institution’s School of Architecture and the co-director of the Center for Building Performance and Diagnostics, .
The Future Of Office Work
Carnegie Mellon University News online
2021-07-02
Vivian Loftness and Erica Cochran Hameen, co-directors of CMU's Center for Building Performance and Diagnostics and faculty in CMU's School of Architecture in the College of Fine Arts, also spoke with PBS NewsHour Weekend about trends they expect to see as more offices reopen.
Media
Social
Industry Expertise
Accomplishments
Best Proposal
Department of Energy (DOE) Competition
Impact Designer Award
2021
Architectural Excellence Special Awards
Education
Carnegie Mellon University
M.S.
Sustainable Design
Carnegie Mellon University
Ph.D.
Building Performance & Diagnostics
Virginia Tech
B.A.
Architecture
Links
Articles
Improving post-occupancy evaluation engagement using social robots
BuildSys '22: Proceedings of the 9th ACM International Conference on Systems for Energy-Efficient Buildings, Cities, and Transportation2022
Post-occupancy evaluation (POE) is essential to evaluate and enhance indoor environmental quality (IEQ) that supports human health and productivity in building environments. Several POE methodical settings have been developed, such as interviews, paper-based questionnaires, and web-based surveys, for collecting sufficient and valid responses from occupants. However, these methods either need extensive preparation of human experts for interviews or have difficulties in engaging participants to get reliable responses and collect detailed feedback from open-ended questions.
Energy performance certificates in the USA and in France—a case study of multifamily housing
Energy Efficiency2022
In the USA and the European Union, buildings account for more than 40% of total energy use and a large proportion of buildings are energy inefficient. Countries address these inefficiency challenges with various initiatives and strategies. One of them relies on rating buildings with energy performance certificates, with the goal that awareness on energy consumption would lead to an efficient retrofit.
Life cycle assessment (LCA) of natural vs conventional building assemblies
Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews2021
Natural earthen and bio-based building materials are critically needed to dramatically reduce energy-intensive and extractive construction practices that are the hallmark of the modern building industry. Building assemblies such as cob, light straw clay and rammed earth were shown to provide an optimal indoor environment for occupant comfort and health.
Protocol for Post Occupancy Evaluation in Schools to Improve Indoor Environmental Quality and Energy Efficiency
Sustainability2020
Research has shown a strong correlation between the performance and health of young students and teachers, and the indoor environmental quality (IEQ) of their schools. A post occupancy evaluation (POE) of a school’s IEQ can help stakeholders understand the current conditions of the building and their impact on occupant wellbeing and productivity. It can also provide pathways for building performance upgrades and resource allocation for school administrations. However, current research on POE in schools frequently omits the contexts of young students during evaluations.
An Interactive Task Conditioning System Featuring Personal Comfort Models and Non-Intrusive Sensing Techniques: A Field Study in Shanghai
Technologies2021
Heating, ventilation and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems play a key role in shaping office environments. However, open-plan office buildings nowadays are also faced with problems like unnecessary energy waste and an unsatisfactory shared indoor thermal environment. Therefore, it is significant to develop a new paradigm of an HVAC system framework so that everyone could work under their preferred thermal environment and the system can achieve higher energy efficiency such as task ambient conditioning system (TAC).
