UC engineering faculty awarded more than $3M to reduce carbon emissions

On campus, she is the faculty adviser for the UC student branch of the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers — a group she helped to revive — and works closely with the students involved. 

"I'm interested in using the surrounding city and region as a testbed for the work that I do," she said. "Having a local impact is really important to me. Every project I've done at UC has had some kind of local component to it." 

Webb's overarching research objective is equitable decarbonization. This process involves reducing greenhouse gas emissions from existing buildings through various methods. Webb's work ensures that the benefits of decarbonization are distributed equitably — avoiding a situation where only certain groups of stakeholders benefit, while others do not. 

Her recent funding awards, including two from the NSF and one from the DOE, will enable her to explore this issue further, advance current methods, and educate others about equitable decarbonization. 

The cost optimal piece centers on the idea of retrofitting a small number of large, inefficient buildings to get a large amount of savings in a small amount of buildings. The equity focused piece addresses the need to ensure that all neighborhoods, especially those that have been historically disinvested, receive the benefits of building upgrades. Retrofitting buildings can reduce energy use, costs, carbon emissions, and lead to improved health outcomes. Webb is working to create standards that place equity at the center. 

"Energy burden is the percent of income people spend on utilities. What if we place that at the center of the BPS, thinking about equity first, and then focus on the environmental piece second?" Webb said. 

Webb and her team are researching the impacts that this would have and how they would differ from typical standards that place environmental concerns above equitable concerns. Paired with data collection, analysis, and research, the team is also engaging with residents and local government to get the full picture of energy consumption and what these changes would mean for these groups, and hopefully get these policies created, passed, and implemented. 

Of the 27 organizations selected for this award, Webb's team is the only one housed at a university. In total, Webb has nearly 20 partners on the project statewide. 

Over the next three years, Webb and partners at UC are collaborating on a National Science Foundation project in its Strengthening American Infrastructure Program. The goal of this project is to develop and demonstrate a new software platform that will help people understand equitable decarbonization and what they can do to support it. 

"As engineers, we use models. We build an energy model of a building, for example, and it's used to explore 'what-if' scenarios," Webb said. "But that data is inherently valuable. The idea behind this project is to take that data and use it as a tool to help people understand equitable decarbonization." 

The heart of this interdisciplinary project, the Human-centered Open Energy Modeling for Equitable Decarbonization (HOME) platform, focuses on working with underserved and low-income communities in the Cincinnati area. Webb is working with Kuanshi Zhong, UC assistant professor of civil engineering, Carlie Trott, UC associate professor of psychology, and the Port of Cincinnati, real-estate redevelopment company, among other project partners.     

The project has three major stages: the collection of baseline data, development, and implementation. Trott, who historically works on examining public attitudes surrounding climate change, is conducting a survey to better understand current ideas and existing knowledge of decarbonization among people in the area. Simultaneously, Webb and her team are performing targeted audits of homes in Cincinnati to then use to analyze the impact these audits have on people's ideas or opinions. 

Once data collection is complete, the team will develop the actual software, conducting usability tests and eventually using it in workshops to demonstrate what it does and how it can be useful to people. 

"We hold interdisciplinary joint lab meetings, which is fun. It's been interesting to see how different disciplines can look at the same data and have very different perspectives on it," Webb said. 

Webb has been honored with the prestigious NSF CAREER award. This grant supports a five year project for early-career faculty who are making a substantial difference in their field and encompass both research and educational components. 

"The NSF CAREER project is focused on how we model equitable decarbonization and include these considerations in the typical building energy modeling process," Webb said. 

In a typical building energy modeling process, inputs (such as physical features of the building) are loaded into a simulation tool and outputs about energy use are given. With this project, Webb is exploring how to reframe this process to ensure equitable outcomes. For instance, she is looking at whether there are specific metrics that should be included or data sets that should be analyzed for equity. 

"This project looks more holistically at the impact of decarbonization on potential outcomes and how we can model them," Webb said.  

Webb and her team will look at various retrofitting technologies in residential buildings and analyze the impact each of these decarbonization tactics would have on energy equity. This may include things like resilience of a building on both a single building and urban scale. 

The NSF CAREER Award also includes an educational component. Webb has partnered with Katherine Castiello Jones, UC associate professor educator of sociology, to design and develop two decarbonization games for K-12 students. The first is a tabletop game focusing on urban scale decarbonization. 

"Imagine playing an analog version of SIM City, and you have to collaborate with other players to decarbonize the city. The idea is that the modeling results will feed into the rules of the game. It combines research, modeling, and education," Webb said. 

Once completed, the game will be distributed to local public schools and tested in classrooms with the help of the CEAS Office of Inclusive Excellence and Community Engagement. Through gamification, Webb hopes players (middle and high school students) think about buildings in the context of a whole city, as well as learning to prioritize elements of them. 

The game will feature real-world challenges and Webb hopes players will learn to appreciate the complexities of energy and become inspired about decarbonization. The game is in its earliest stages of development. 

Since her arrival at UC, Webb has made an impact on numerous students and made invaluable contributions in the fields of energy efficiency and architectural engineering. 

"How we build buildings and how we use those buildings says so much about what we value as a society," she said. "I find that fascinating." 

In each of her projects, Webb collaborates will valuable partners and students, for whom she expresses immense gratitude. 

Featured image at top: UC's Mantei Center on campus. Photo/Andrew Higley/UC Marketing + Brand