Leslie Norford is the George Macomber (1948) Professor in Construction Management and Professor of Building Technology in the Department of Architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), specializing in Architecture and Design. He received a BS in engineering science from Cornell University in 1973 and a PhD in mechanical and aerospace engineering from Princeton University in 1984. Between 1974 and 1979, he worked as a nuclear power engineer for the US Navy and the US Department of Energy. Prior to his appointment to the MIT faculty in 1988, Norford served as a lecturer in Princeton University's Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and as a postdoctoral associate and research engineer at Princeton's Center for Energy and Environmental Studies. He has been Associate Head of the Department of Architecture since 2006 and was formerly a partner at Tabors Caramanis and Associates, consulting on electric utility energy conservation, electricity pricing, and thermal storage system controls.

Norford, trained as a mechanical engineer, has focused on sustainable building design and operation since the 1970s oil shocks. He specializes in energy studies, controls, and ventilation to enhance buildings' resource efficiency. His research encompasses building energy measurements and simulations, system diagnostics and controls, natural and mechanical ventilation, efficient cooling systems, and interactions between buildings and the urban environment, such as the urban heat island effect and urban pollutant transport. Through the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology, he explores these urban dynamics. Norford teaches classes in energy and building design, building ventilation and HVAC systems, and an undergraduate building technology laboratory addressing schools and housing in developing countries. A member of ASHRAE, the American Meteorological Society, the International Building Performance Simulation Association, and the International Association for Urban Climate, he has published key works including "The rise of low-cost sensing for managing air pollution in cities" (Environment International, 2015), "Ultrafine particles in cities" (Environment International, 2014), "The urban weather generator" (Journal of Building Performance Simulation, 2013), and "Non-intrusive electrical load monitoring in commercial buildings based on steady-state and transient load-detection algorithms" (Energy and Buildings, 1996). His scholarship has garnered over 20,000 citations.

Professional Email: lnorford@mit.edu