Dr Jim Parker

About Dr Jim Parker

Dr Parker specialises in building energy modelling and the urban environment. He manages externally funded research projects, collaborates with industrial partners and supports undergraduate, postgraduate and doctoral students.

Dr Parker has been involved in a broad range of research projects, including detailed modelling of domestic and non-domestic buildings, in both retrofit and new-build scenarios. His work has also expanded to cover environmental monitoring in urban environments, with a particular focus on urban heat islands, air quality and the impact of urban green space.

Jim's research has included extensive work on the calibration of energy and thermal models, an area of expertise that informs in-depth evaluation of retrofit measures. This expertise has helped to secure high value research projects from Government Departments and UKRI organisations, all aimed at reducing the environmental impact of existing buildings.

In addition to his work in the retrofit sector, Jim has been involved in projects that have developed offsite manufacture systems for low energy buildings, overheating mitigation in future climate scenarios, energy management systems in the non-domestic sector, performance analysis of district heating systems and green infrastructure deployment in urban environments. He has also been involved in IEA Annexes and was a sub-task lead for the IEA Annex 67: Energy Flexible Buildings.

Current Teaching

Jim runs a module on Sustainable Refurbishment as part of the MSc in Architectural Technology & Design, which provides a direct link with the LSI’s core research outputs. He also delivers lectures as part of the BSc and MSc courses in Building Services Engineering, covering Building Performance Simulation, Smart Cities, Urban Heat Islands and Writing for Publication.

Research Interests

Current and ongoing research is focused on the deep retrofit of the UK housing stock, to mitigate against unintended consequences and to evaluate both the in-use performance and financial payback of retrofit measures. This work is crucial in the UK's holistic targets to reduce carbon emissions. It considers buildings as a complex system and calibrated models help to explore the intricacies of multiple interactive retrofits and to evaluate their impact on thermal comfort.

Jim also leads projects that explore the impact of microclimates in the urban environment, with ongoing projects monitoring the internal and external environment in different urban archetypes, the intensity of urban heat islands, and the impact of green infrastructure on air temperature and air quality. Longer-term, outputs from this work will be integrated with Smart City applications for a more sustainable built environment.