STAFF PROFILE
Professor Priya Rajagopalan
Priya is the Director of the Sustainable Building Innovation Lab (SBi Lab).Priya has over 15 years of experience in building science research and teaching.
Her research expertise includes energy and indoor environmental performance of buildings, urban climatology and urban thermal balance. She has coordinated a number of projects in the area of benchmarking and labelling energy performance of different types of building in the tropical and temperate climates.Priya brings a substantial knowledge base and skills in environmentally sustainable design and evaluation to the construction programme. The main areas of Priya’s research include energy for buildings, urban climatology, urban environmental physics and indoor environmental performance of buildings. Priya’s research expertise has been recognised with industry funded projects as well as industry based internships for PhD students. The outcomes from her scholarship have directly informed the national building industry through the development of performance indicators and assessment tools for certain complex building typologies.
Prior to joining RMIT, Priya worked as a senior lecturer in the School of Architecture and Built Environment, Deakin University where she took on many leadership roles such as the Energy and Greenhouse Gas working group chair, Building Environment research cluster leader and Higher Degree by Research (HDR) coordinator and made significant contributions to the planning and strategic direction of the school and the university. Before coming to Australia, She worked as a research fellow in the Energy Sustainability Unit, School of Design and Environment, National University of Singapore where she managed a number of projects sponsored by the National Environment Agency (NEA) including building energy efficiency labelling program.
List of most recent publications (PDF 60 KB)
Websites
Media
- Incorrect construction techniques behind loud creaking in Melbourne high-rise
- Air of mystery: ventilation quality and its impact on aged care facilities
- A breath of fresh air for vulnerable Australians
- Regis Aged Care Partnership with RMIT
- Citizen scientists take heatwaves into their own hands
- RMIT University brings Citizen Science Project to Bayswater
- Microclimate project to help planners keep heat island effect at bay
- Wanted: citizen climate scientists for nationwide study
- Citizen scientists to help map urban heat
- Join a study on extreme heat in Yarra
- Climate change innovation grant
- Urban microclimate project (Herald Sun, 2018)
Teaching:
- BUSM 3213 Research Investigation 1
- BUSM 3214 Research Investigation 2 (Programme: Master of Project Management, Master of Property, Master of Energy Efficient and Sustainable Buildings)
- BUIL1128 Building Services (Programme: Bachelor of Applied Science (Construction Management))
Teaching:
- BUSM 3213 Research Investigation 1
- BUSM 3214 Research Investigation 2 (Programme: Master of Project Management, Master of Property, Master of Energy Efficient and Sustainable Buildings)
- BUIL1128 Building Services (Programme: Bachelor of Applied Science (Construction Management))
- PhD (Building) National University of Singapore
- M.Sc (Building Science) National University of Singapore
- B.Tech (Architectural Engineering), National Institute of Technology (NIT), Calicut, India
- Member, Sustainable Environment Advisory Group, Hobsons Bay City Council.
- Project leader, Benchmarking energy and indoor environmental performance of aquatic centres, Aquatic and Recreation Victoria.
- Member, American Society for Heating, Refrigeration and Air conditioning (ASHRAE)
- Member, International Building Performance Simulation Association (IBPSA)
- Rajagopalan, P.,Moore, T.,Andamon, M. (2019). The Built Environment in Australia In: Energy Performance in the Australian Built Environment, Springer, Singapore
- Moore, T.,Andamon, M.,Rajagopalan, P. (2019). Cohesion: Our Environment�Building Better and Smarter In: Energy Performance in the Australian Built Environment, Springer, Singapore
- Jamei, E.,Rajagopalan, P. (2019). Effect of street design on pedestrian thermal comfort In: Architectural Science Review, 62, 92 - 111
- Jamei, Y.,Rajagopalan, P.,Sun, C. (2019). Spatial structure of surface urban heat island and its relationship with vegetation and built-up areas in Melbourne, Australia In: Science of the Total Environment, 659, 1335 - 1351
- Rajagopalan, P. (2019). Recent advances in Passive Cooling Techniques In: Cooling energy solutions for buildings and cities, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., Singapore
- Jamei, Y.,Rajagopalan, P.,Sun, Q. (2019). Time-series dataset on land surface temperature, vegetation, built up areas and other climatic factors in top 20 global cities (2000-2018) In: Data in Brief, 23, 1 - 4
- Shooshtarian, S.,Rajagopalan, P. (2019). Perception of Wind in Open Spaces In: Climate, 7, 1 - 17
- Rajagopalan, P. (2019). Advances in Wind Tunnel and CFD Analysis for Building Design in Hot-Humid Climates In: Building in Hot and Humid Regions: Historical Perspective and Technological Advances, Springer, Singapore
- Andamon, M.,Rajagopalan, P.,Woo, J.,Huang, R. (2019). An investigation of indoor air quality in school classrooms in Victoria, Australia In: Proceedings of the 53rd International Conference of the Architectural Science Association (ANZAScA), IIT Roorkee, India, 28-30 Novembr 2019
- Alawode, A.,Rajagopalan, P. (2018). A methodology towards achieving Net zero energy performance for high-rise residential buildings in Australia In: Proceedings of the 52nd International Conference of the Architectural Science Association 2018, Melbourne, Australia, 28 Nov-1 Dec 2018
2 PhD Completions4 PhD Current Supervisions
- Enhanced Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) for Improving the Wellbeing of Vulnerable Population in Victoria. Funded by: Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning: Climate Change Innovation Grants 2017 from (2018 to 2020)
- Scientists work with communities to improve urban microclimate. Funded by: Department of Industry, Innovation and Science - Citizen Science Grants from (2017 to 2021)
- An Australian Housing Condition Data Infrastructure - Administered by The University of Adelaide. Funded by: ARC Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment and Facilities (LIEF) 2016 from (2016 to 2016)