Roel Loonen is an Assistant Professor at the Unit Building Physics and Services, Eindhoven University of Technology, the Netherlands. His research and teaching focus on the development and application of modeling and simulation strategies to provide decision support for designing buildings that combine high indoor quality with low or no impact on the environment. Roel collaborates with SMEs in various R&D projects, aspiring to accelerate the process of bringing innovative building envelope technologies and renewable energy systems to the market. Many of his projects deal with the advancement of adaptive facades and building-integrated renewable energy technologies, for example through development, validation and application of new building performance simulation models.

Roel Loonen received a BSc and MSc (cum laude) in Building Services from Eindhoven University of Technology, the Netherlands. In 2018, he received a PhD from the same university with a dissertation on ‘Approaches for computational performance optimization of innovative adaptive façade concepts’. Roel was awarded the first prize in the REHVA International Student Competition (2011), and the Best PhD supervisor award from the Department of the Built Environment, TU/e (2018). Roel is a board member of the Dutch-Flemish affiliate of the International Building Performance Simulation Association (IBPSA) and co-chair of the website committee of IBPSA World. He is a reviewer for 35 academic journals and has been a member of several scientific committees of international conferences.

Knowing that trying to predict the future is a loser’s game, it becomes a rewarding challenge to develop models that are as useful instead of as complex as possible.