Nuria Casquero-Modrego
Núria is an architect and construction engineer trained at UC Berkeley and the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC). She is currently a researcher at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), where she focuses on the intersection of the built environment, indoor environmental quality, and occupant health. Her research aims to enhance both the energy performance and non-energy impacts of residential buildings, particularly through retrofits that prioritize health outcomes. She contributes to national and international initiatives, including the IEA EBC programme, ASHRAE, ISIAQ and UNEP. Previously, she worked on the SinBerBEST Project at UC Berkeley, led UC Berkeley’s 3rd-place team in the 2017 U.S. DOE Solar Decathlon, and served on the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC) faculty. She also co-founded TC ESTUDI Arquitectura in Barcelona, specializing in energy retrofitting, and affordable housing.
Education
Awards
Spot: Multifamily Building Efficiency Screening Tool Team - October 31st 2023
Rapid development of the comprehensive and easy to use Multifamily Building Efficiency Screening Tool for HUD.
HUD MBEST Tool Development - May 25th 2023
A team of BTUS researchers created the Multifamily Building Efficiency Screening Tool (MBEST) for HUD's Green and Resilient Retrofit Program (GRRP). The GRRP covers grants and loans of almost $5 billion of investment in multifamily housing. The tool will be used to screen multifamily buildings and understand current opportunities for energy efficiency improvements. The tool allows building managers and owners to enter information about lighting, HVAC heating/cooling systems, domestic hot water systems, and the building envelope to come up with a building score that allows HUD to make decisions about investing in building upgrades. The key reason for this SPOT nomination is that the LBNL team worked under considerable time pressure to create the tool in just a few weeks to meet HUDs deadline for launching the program and utilized their expertise and knowledge over a broad range of multifamily building performance to make the tool both comprehensive and easy to use.