Dr Ben Roberts

BSc MSc MRes PhD PGCLTHE FHEA

  • Senior Lecturer in Healthy Buildings

Research groups and centres

Publications
ORCiD Google Scholar

Research and expertise

I am currently researching ways to improve thermal comfort, indoor air quality, and health in buildings. My work centres on the measurement and modelling of the indoor environment, with a particular focus on overheating and indoor air quality. I also lead projects on building performance, with a focus on airtightness and infiltration.

My fieldwork is conducted in buildings across several climates, such as extreme heat in informal settlements in the tropics, and indoor air quality in tropical hospitals and large mass-gathering event venues in the UK. My experimental work is centred on the synthetically-occupied Loughborough Matched Pair test houses in the UK, and full-scale test cells in Ghana.

In temperate climates, I am investigating how to ensure that the predictions of overheating by models are accurate for the new building regulations. I have published award-winning research on the subject and I am currently leading the Reliable Overheating Modelling in Modern Apartments (ROMMA) project.

Read more about my work at: https://www.lboro.ac.uk/research/experts/ben-roberts/

Recent research recordings include:

Current research & innovation activity

  • Gathering evidence to improve airtightness in the UK housing stock, Department for Energy Security & Net Zero, (2023-2025), Principal Investigator
  • Reliable Overheating Modelling in Modern Apartments (ROMMA), Tyréns Research & Innovation, (2023-2025), Principal Investigator
  • A socio-technical evaluation of external shading to mitigate summertime overheating in UK homes (PhD Studentship), British Blind & Shutter Association, (2023-2027), Principal Investigator
  • Embedding adaptation to climate change into the Building Regulations, EPSRC IAA and CIBSE, (2024-2025), Co-Investigator
  • Smart Windows evaluation (Enhanced Clean Air Innovation Trials), InnovateUK, (2024-2025), Co-Investigator

Recently completed research & innovation projects

  • Reducing the Impact of Extreme Heat to Improve Wellbeing in Cities (REFIT), British Academy (2020-2022), Research Associate.
  • Airborne Infection Reduction through Building Operation and Design for SARS-CoV-2 (AIRBODS), EPSRC (2021-2022), Research Associate.
  • Vice Chancellor’s Independent Research Fellow EPSRC (2022-2024), Principal Investigator.
  • Improving the Predictions of Overheating (IMPROVE), Tyrens (2021-2023), Principal Investigator.
  • Technical Evaluation of SMETER Technologies (TEST), BEIS (2019-2022), Research Associate.

Completed Doctoral Researchers

Recent publications

For my latest publications, see Google Scholar

All publications

Teaching

  • Post Graduate Certificate in Learning & Teaching in Higher Education (PGCLTHE) since 2025
  • Fellow of Advance HE (FHEA) since 2025, and previously Associate Fellow since 2018

Undergraduate

  • Building Science (Module Leader)
  • Building Services Technology (Module Leader)
  • Indoor Environments (Module Contributor)

Profile

An MSc in Energy Policy at the University of Exeter first got me thinking seriously about energy use in buildings. My research into consumer acceptance of a short-lived retrofit policy, the Green Deal, helped me understand the human side of the problems we face in reducing energy use in homes.

A knowledge transfer partnership position followed at the Global Sustainability Institute (Anglia Ruskin University) where I evaluated effective marketing strategies for new Green Deal customers in a project funded by the Department of Energy and Climate Change (as it then was). The industry host for my KTP was an insulation and heating engineering company. I learnt how businesses are run, how they are affected by government policy, and the way they interact with academic research.

I then joined Loughborough University to pursue a PhD in the London-Loughborough Centre for Doctoral Training in Energy Demand. I completed an MRes degree as a prerequisite to the PhD measuring the energy saving potential of zonal heating controls.

Mitigation of summertime overheating in existing UK homes, without using air-conditioning, was my PhD research area. The intention of my PhD was to provide recommendations to occupants for maintaining safe, healthy and comfortable environments in homes during heatwaves and to create a resource of data using CIBSE TM59 window opening schedules and gain profiles to validate models.

Between 2019 and 2022, I worked as a Research Associate on a range of projects including the TEST, REFIT, and the award-winning AIRBODS. During this time, I also led my own research via the IMPROVE project. In 2022, I was awarded a competitive fellowship funded by the EPSRC Vice Chancellor’s Independent Research Fellowship, which I continued until taking up a Lectureship post in 2023.

As a Lecturer, I led several research projects on airtightness, external shading, overheating model validation, and co-led work which evaluated weather files for CIBSE, and “smart windows”. During this time I was also seconded part-time to the Health & Safety Executive as an Expert Advisor on Overheating.

In 2025 I was promoted to Senior Lecturer and I was offered membership of the College of Experts by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government of the United Kingdom.

Professional affiliations

  • College of Experts by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government of the United Kingdom since 2025
  • Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA) since 2025; Associate Fellow since 2018

Awards

  • The Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers (CIBSE) Dufton Silver Medal 2024 for the highest rated paper related to fundamental research
  • CIBSE Building Performance Awards: Learning & Development 2023
  • CIBSE Building Performance Awards: Building Performance Champion (Overall) Highly Commended 2023
  • CIBSE Carter Bronze Medal 2020 for the highest rated paper related to research application
  • ABCE 2019 Research Staff Excellence for Outstanding Research
  • ABCE 2022 Research Staff Excellence for Outstanding Research

External activities

  • Member of MHCLG College of Experts (2025)
  • Seconded as Expert Advisor on Overheating to the Health & Safety Executive (2023-2024)
  • Reviewer for Buildings & Cities, City & Environment Interactions, The Geographical Journal, International Journal of Building Pathology & Adaptation, Journal of Building Engineering, Public Health Challenges, and The Journal of Engineering Research
  • Scientific Committee for CIBSE Technical Symposium 2025 Scientific Committee
  • Technical document reviewer for Historic England (2024)
  • Reviewer for C-DICE Fellowship applications (in 2023) (and informally reviewed Vice Chancellor Independent Research Fellowship applications in 2022-2024)

Key collaborators

My research and enterprise activities are conducted with a range of academic and stakeholder partners, including:

  • University of Ghana, Accra, Ghana
  • University for Development Studies, Tamale, Ghana
  • Hilson Moran Partnership Ltd
  • Inkling LLP
  • UCL
  • University of Nottingham
  • University of Sheffield
  • Salford Energy House