Dr. Nancy Ma has received the prestigious IBPSA-USA 2026 Emerging Contributor Award, which recognizes an early-career individual who has demonstrated strong potential for significant contributions to the field of building simulation This recognition highlights Dr. Ma’s growing contributions to building performance simulation, human-centered building modeling, climate resilience, healthy buildings, and AI-enabled approaches for understanding how buildings affect people’s daily experiences, health, and well-being.
Dr. Ma’s research seeks to expand the role of building simulation beyond traditional questions of energy performance. Her work asks how simulation can help reveal the human consequences of building design and operation decisions, particularly as buildings respond to climate change, extreme weather, indoor environmental quality challenges, and community needs. Through her work, Dr. Ma aims to develop a new generation of building models that are more responsive to how people actually use, operate, and depend on buildings. Her research emphasizes that occupants are not simply schedules, loads, or assumptions in a model, but individuals whose decisions are shaped by comfort needs, energy costs, health risks, and the practical constraints of their built environments.
Dr. Ma is honored to receive this award and is especially pleased to celebrate this year’s IBPSA-USA awards alongside distinguished scholars and contributors, including Ralph Muehleisen, Zheng O’Neill, Nathaniel Jones, and Zhihong Pang.
Congratulations to Dr. Ma on this exciting recognition!