Degrees:

• Ph.D. in Building Performance and Diagnostics, Carnegie Mellon University
• M.S. in Building Science, National University of Singapore
• B.E. in Electrical and Mechanical Engineering, Nanjing University of Technology

Lab/Center Affiliations:

• Built Environment Science and Technology (BEST) Lab
• Syracuse Center of Excellence in Energy and Environmental Systems

Research interests:

• Modeling occupant behavior in buildings
• Intelligent building operation
• Fault detection and diagnostics
• Buildings-to-grid integration
• Grid-interactive Efficient Buildings
• Urban mobility
• Urban building energy modeling
• Modeling and optimization of urban energy system
• Human performance

Current Research:

Prof. Dong’s current research goal is to explore how smart buildings play an active role in urban scale cyber-physical energy system considering human behavior, renewable energy, energy storage, smart grid, health and resilience through physics-based modeling, optimization and controls, heterogeneous sensing and data-driven models. Current major research topics are: (1) Human-Building-Interactions including Detecting, Modeling and Simulating Occupant Behavior in Buildings and Behavior-driven Control and Optimization for Energy Systems and (2) System-level Modeling, Optimization and Control for Urban Built Environment including Buildings-to-Grid Integration Control and Optimization Framework, Modeling of Occupancy Behavior at a Community Level and Connect with other Urban Infrastructures and Community energy planning and management.

Major ongoing research projects are (1) NSF CAREER: Holistic Assessment of the Impacts of Connected Buildings and People on Community Energy Planning and Management, (2) Department of Energy – Argonne National Lab: Spatial-temporal data-driven weather and energy forecasting for improved implementation of advanced building controls, and (3) ARPA-E: Quantification of HVAC Energy Savings for Occupancy Sensing in Buildings through An Innovative Testing Methodology.

Teaching Interests:

• HVAC design
• Building performance modeling and diagnostics

Honors and Awards:

• 2019 NSF CAREER Award
• 2018 IBPSA-USA Emerging Contributor Award
• 2017 Innovator of the Year, The University of Texas at San Antonio
• 2017 Faculty Research Award, The University of Texas at San Antonio
• 2017 Distinguished Service Award for IEA EBC Annex 66 Project
• 2010 Isabel Sophia Liceaga Discretionary Fund Faculty Award, Carnegie Mellon University
• 2009 Akram Midani Award, Carnegie Mellon University

Select Publications:

Dong, B., Liu, Y., Fontenot, H., Ouf, M., Osman, M., Chong, A., Qin, S., Salim, F., Xue, H., Yan, D. and Jin, Y., 2021. Occupant behavior modeling methods for resilient building design, operation and policy at urban scale: A review. Applied Energy, 293, p.116856.

Pang, Z., Chen, Y., Zhang, J., O’Neill, Z., Cheng, H. and Dong, B., 2021. How much HVAC energy could be saved from the occupant-centric smart home thermostat: A nationwide simulation study. Applied Energy, 283, p.116251.

Pang, Z., Chen, Y., Zhang, J., O’Neill, Z., Cheng, H. and Dong, B., 2020. Nationwide HVAC energy-saving potential quantification for office buildings with occupant-centric controls in various climates. Applied Energy, 279, p.115727.

Wu, W., Dong, B., Wang, Q.R., Kong, M., Yan, D., An, J. and Liu, Y., 2020. A novel mobility-based approach to derive urban-scale building occupant profiles and analyze impacts on building energy consumption. Applied Energy, 278, p.115656.

O’Brien, W., Wagner, A., Schweiker, M., Mahdavi, A., Day, J., Kjærgaard, M.B., Carlucci, S., Dong, B., Tahmasebi, F., Yan, D. and Hong, T., 2020. Introducing IEA EBC Annex 79: Key challenges and opportunities in the field of occupant-centric building design and operation. Building and Environment, 178, p.106738.

Wagner, A., O’Brien, W. and Dong, B. eds., 2018. Exploring Occupant Behavior in Buildings: Methods and Challenges. Springer.

Dong, B., Yan, D. Li, Z.*,Jin, Y., Feng, X.H., Fontenot, H. 2018. Modeling occupancy and behavior for better building design and operation—A critical review. In Building Simulation (in Press). Springer Berlin Heidelberg. (IF: 1.170)-Invited Paper: 10 Years Anniversary.

Dong, B., Li, Z.*, Taha, A. and Gatsis, N., 2018. Occupancy-based buildings-to-grid integration framework for smart and connected communities. Applied Energy, 219, pp.123-137.(IF: 7.182)