Susan Roaf

Susan Roaf, B.A Hon, A.A.Diploma, PhD, FRIAS is Emeritus Professor of Architectural Engineering at Heriot Watt University, Edinburgh. Her global reputation as a leading Eco-designer is built on an extensive and varied career as researcher, designer, author and thinker. Her ten years in the Middle East covered research on traditional technologies of desert lands, the anthropology of the nomadic tents of the Lurs and seven years as an archaeologist in Iraq. Her PhD was on the Windcatchers of Yazd, Iran.

During 15 years as Professor of Sustainable Architecture at Oxford Brookes University she also worked on Ecotourism and Mountain Tourism in N.W.F.P., Pakistan. She has edited and written 22 books, the best known being on Ecohouse Design (4 eds., 5 languages including Portuguese), Adapting Buildings and Cities for Climate Change (2 eds.3 languages) and Adaptive Thermal Comfort. (3 vols).

She has organised numerous international conferences (eg. www.plea2017.net and www.windsorconference.com; www.comfortattheextremes.com). Her current research interests and publication activities centre around issues of comfort and resilient design in climate extremes and processes for adaptation to climate change in the built environment. Her most recent field work has been in Antarctica experimenting over-winter with an extreme temporary shelter (www.extremelodge.org).