Rate My Professor Maria Kolokotroni

Professor Maria Kolokotroni serves as a Professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Brunel University London, part of the College of Engineering, Design and Physical Sciences. She joined the university in 1998 after a distinguished career trajectory. Her academic journey includes an MSc in Environmental Design and Engineering and a PhD on the 'Thermal Performance of Housing' from the Bartlett School at University College London. Previously, she worked five years at the Building Research Establishment in Garston's Indoor Environment Division, where her research centered on natural ventilation strategies for office buildings and related energy and indoor air quality issues in non-domestic buildings. She also completed a two-year post-doctoral project at UCL on environmental design guidance for research laboratories and a three-year EPSRC-funded post-doc at the University of Westminster studying moisture in residential buildings.

Kolokotroni's research interests focus on urban ventilation, urban microclimate, and the impacts of climate change on the thermal performance and ventilation of multi-family residential buildings, as well as the influence of the urban environment on the thermal performance and environmental quality of residential buildings. She is the Director of the Centre for Resource Efficient Future Cities within the Institute of Energy Futures. Her extensive project portfolio includes leading EPSRC-funded initiatives such as 'sChOOL YARD: Outdoor thermal comfort models for children' (2025-2028) and 'Urban albedo computation in high latitude locations: An experimental approach' (2017-2020), European Commission projects like 'PRELUDE: Prescient building Operations utilizing Real Time data for ENergy Dynamic Optimization' (2020-2024) and 'ReCO2ST: Residential Retrofit assessment platform and demonstrations for near zero energy and CO2 emissions' (2018-2021), and participation in IEA EBC Annexes including Resilient Cooling (Annex 80, 2018-2023) and Ventilative Cooling (Annex 62, 2013-2018). In teaching, she delivers modules on Building Environmental Design, Building Services Engineering, Energy and the Environment, and Sustainable Energy Technologies.