Stars of Our Community: Paul Raftery
Posted by jteo on Mar. 1, 2025 / Member Spotlight / Subscribe 0
Meet our featured member, Paul Raftery, a Professional Researcher at the Center for the Built Environment at UC Berkeley. With years of experience in HVAC engineering, controls, energy modeling, and advanced building technologies, Paul is passionate about improving building design and operation to create efficient and comfortable indoor environments. He currently leads impactful research projects focused on reducing carbon emissions from existing large buildings and improving building controls. His work continues to drive innovation in sustainable and energy-efficient solutions for the built environment.
How long have you been involved with ASHRAE in years? Describe the roles or capacities in which you are involved with ASHRAE.
I joined ASHRAE in 2009 as a student member - 16 years ago now. I’m currently a member of several committees: ASHRAE Guideline 36 (High Performance Sequences of Operation), ASHRAE Standard 231P (Control Description Language) and ASHRAE Technical Committee 6.5 (Radiant Heating and Cooling). I just rolled off as Chair of TC 6.5 in 2024. I also regularly publish my work in ASHRAE conference and journal papers, and present at national and chapter events.
If you had to describe the ASHRAE community in three words, what would they be?
Collaborative, curious, and transformative.
What has been your favorite ASHRAE memory, event, or experience, and why?
No question there for me – it was when I went to the AHR Expo for the first time back when I was a student. Seeing the sheer scale and variety of different organizations and products involved in our industry really was an eye-opening experience. Now I encourage all our students to go and check it out.
How has your involvement with ASHRAE influenced your career and personal growth?
Participating in ASHRAE has given me countless useful learning opportunities over the years. It gives me feedback from other engineers regarding the issues they encounter and the questions they have which helps me figure out what to do research on and how to make that work as relevant as I can. It also provides lots of great outreach avenues to get the results of that research out into practice, which I personally see a lot of value in.
Where do you see the industry heading in the next 5-10 years, and what developments are you most excited about?
I think the industry will continue to improve ways to reduce carbon emissions in the built environment, particularly for existing buildings. The developments I’m most excited about are (hopefully) seeing more focus on embodied and fugitive refrigerant emissions for MEP systems, and to see more building performance assessments expand to include hourly marginal emissions for the electricity grid. That way we can better quantify the total environmental impact a building has, and minimize it.
What is one key piece of advice you would offer to young professionals entering this field?
Analyze trend data from real buildings to understand how they actually operate versus assuming how they operate. Once you’ve worked on a few buildings, where possible circle back to them a year or more after they have been in operation and analyze how they are performing. You’ll mostly be volunteering your time to do this, but it’s worth it – it will make you a better engineer.
0 Comments