In this episode of Better Buildings for Humans, host Joe Menchefski is joined by Lauren Ferguson from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health for a riveting deep dive into the unseen forces shaping our indoor environments. Lauren unpacks her journey from biochemistry to environmental engineering and her groundbreaking work modeling childhood pollution exposure in London. The conversation spans wildfire smoke infiltration, the silent threat of PM2.5, and why ventilation might just be our best defense. Plus, hear why Lauren believes you “can’t buy your way out of bad environmental conditions,” and why indoor air quality could be the next frontier in mental health research. With insights into the delicate dance between energy efficiency and human health, this episode challenges how we think about buildings—from private homes to public schools.

More About Lauren Ferguson

Lauren Ferguson is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow with the Healthy Buildings Program. Lauren holds a PhD in Environmental Engineering from University College London (UCL), UK, where she built a personal exposure model which estimated childhood exposure to PM2.5 for 1.3 million individuals in Greater London. The tool can be used to assess a number of “soft” (for example, behavioral modifications) and “hard” (for example, building interventions) policy interventions on childhood exposure to air pollution.

Lauren’s interests lie in using building physics and statistical models to assess population-level exposures to indoor environmental hazards, such as heat and air pollution, and understanding how these exposures lead to health impacts and inequalities. In addition to her doctoral research, she has applied these techniques to study population exposure to household air pollution in Nairobi’s informal settlements and predict the extent of indoor overheating the UK housing stock may face under future climate scenarios. The goal of her work with the Healthy Buildings Program is to continue her research into indoor heat, where she will be building a US-based housing stock model.

CONTACT:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauren-ferguson-55b178100/ 

https://hsph.harvard.edu/profile/lauren-ferguson/ 

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