Gail Brager

Gail Brager is a Distinguished Professor of Architecture at the University of California, Berkeley, serving as Director of the Center for Environmental Design Research (CEDR) and Associate Director of the Center for the Built Environment (CBE), a research collaboration with over 40 industry partners. She holds a 50% appointment as Associate Dean of the Graduate Division and is an affiliate faculty member of the Energy and Resources Group.

Her educational background includes a PhD and MS in Mechanical Engineering from UC Berkeley and a BS from UC Santa Barbara.

Professor Brager's research focuses on thermal comfort in naturally ventilated and mixed-mode buildings, sustainable design, and the assessment of energy and indoor environmental quality. She pioneered adaptive thermal comfort models that revolutionized building standards by accounting for occupant behavior and climate adaptation, bridging engineering precision with architectural aesthetics to create human-centered sustainable spaces.

Her publication record reveals a consistent trajectory from foundational adaptive comfort theory to contemporary occupant-centric environmental control systems, with increasing emphasis on big-data field studies like the ASHRAE Global Thermal Comfort Database II and practical applications in green-certified workplaces.

• Presidential Young Investigator Award (NSF)
• Progressive Architecture Research Award
• AIA Education Honors Honorable Mention
• Places/EDRA award for Place-based research
• ASHRAE Fellow
• ASHRAE Publications Award

As a dedicated educator and research leader, she has mentored generations of architects and engineers while securing industry-funded projects that translate thermal comfort research into real-world building performance standards through CEDR and CBE.

Her leadership in CEDR and CBE fosters interdisciplinary teams spanning academia and industry, driving innovations in sustainable building design through post-occupancy evaluations, occupant behavior studies, and climate-responsive ventilation strategies that directly inform green building certifications worldwide.