Prateek joined NREL in January 2022 and works in the Residential Buildings Research Group in the Building Technologies and Science Center. Prateek’s areas of expertise include building ventilation, air infiltration, indoor air quality, blower door testing, asbestos monitoring, air quality and meteorological monitoring, building energy modeling, data analytics, multizonal airflow network modeling, heating ventilating and air conditioning (HVAC), and refrigeration systems characterization.
Prior to joining NREL, Prateek worked at Oak Ridge National Laboratory as a postdoctoral research associate, where he led several research efforts including a large-scale field study to investigate the impacts of home energy retrofits on potential asbestos contamination of houses containing vermiculite insulation, simulation of airborne SARS-CoV-2 aerosol dispersion within indoor environments, and development of multizonal airflow network model of an existing research building. For his Ph.D. dissertation work at University of Colorado Boulder, he led the engineering-related data collection and analysis for a large-scale U.S. Environmental Protection Agency-funded research correlating home weatherization, indoor air quality, and respiratory health in residential buildings.
Prateek is originally from Kathmandu, Nepal, and enjoys hiking, biking, cooking, playing musical instruments, and DIY IoT and robotics projects as his hobbies.
Research Interests
Residential building energy systems
Mechanical, electrical, plumbing, and HVAC&R system energy optimization and decarbonization
Multizonal airflow network and building energy modeling
Renewable energy generation and systems integration
Sustainable and environmentally benign building materials
Air quality monitoring instrumentation and air filtration
Smart building systems
Education
Ph.D., Mechanical Engineering, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, CO
M.S., Mechanical Engineering, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, CO
B.E., Mechanical Engineering, Tribhuvan University Institute of Engineering, Pulchowk Campus, Kathmandu, Nepal
Featured Work
Multizonal modeling of SARS-CoV-2 aerosol dispersion in a virtual office building, Building and Environment (2021)
Computational fluid dynamics simulation of SARS-CoV-2 aerosol dispersion inside a grocery store, Building and Environment (2021)
Air Return Strategies and Airborne SARS-CoV-2, 6th SONEUK Annual Conference (2021)
Metrics for Interzonal Dispersion Assessment of Airborne SARS-CoV-2 Within Office Buildings, 15th ROOMVENT Conference (2021)
Experimental Plan for the Vermiculite Study, ORNL Technical Report (2021)
Impact of Outdoor Air Pollution on Indoor Air Quality in Low-Income Homes during Wildfire Seasons, International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (2019)
Impact of Low-Income Home Energy-Efficiency Retrofits on Building Air Tightness and Healthy Home Indicators, Sustainability (2019)
Relationships between home ventilation rates and respiratory health in the Colorado Home Energy Efficiency and Respiratory Health (CHEER) study, Environmental Research (2019)
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