Indoor Environmental Quality Lab, University of Sydney

For over four decades Professor Richard de Dear has focused his research career on defining what occupants want and need from their built environments, and assessing the performance of buildings in terms of meeting those requirements. He is currently the most highly cited active researcher in thermal comfort, with over 210 peer-reviewed papers in the SCOPUS database, as well as several monographs on the subject. Within that body of research it is his adaptive model of thermal comfort that’s had the greatest impact, not just on the research community but also on the design and operation of actual buildings. His adaptive model underpins the American Society of Heating and the Refrigerating and Air Conditioning Engineers’ thermal comfort standard, ASHRAE 55-2020, which in turn, informs several national thermal comfort standards around the world.