Research Fields

• Thermal Comfort and Human Factors

• HVAC System and Building Energy Efficiency

Research Profile

Maohui LUO, Associate Professor, PhD Supervisor. Received B.S. degree from Tongji University in 2012 and Ph.D. degree from Tsinghua University in 2017, and completed postdoctoral research at University of California, Berkeley in 2020. Dr. LUO’s research focus on thermal comfort and human factors in built environment, HVAC system and building energy efficiency. He has completed multiple projects such as the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) Young Scientists Program, a sub-project of the 14th Five-Year National Key R&D Program, and the Shanghai Natural Science Foundation General Program. By now, Dr. LUO has published over 40 Journal papers and gained more than 5,000 citations on Google Scholar, which helped him named as the world "Top 2% Scientists" (2024, 2025).

Teaching

• Engineering Management and Economics (undergraduate course) – Received the Grand Prize in 2023 National Teaching Competition for Young Faculties in the Building Environment and Energy Engineering Major.

• Heat Pump Technology and Applications (undergraduate course)

• Human Factors in Built Environment (graduate course)

• Data Science and Energy Applications (graduate course)

Publication

Published over 40 journal papers, 2 books (in English), gained over 5,000 Google-Scholar citations. Selected representative works are listed below. Further details are available on ResearchGate and Google Scholar profiles.

• Maohui Luo, Zhe Wang, Hui Zhang*, Edward Arens, Davide Filingeri, Ling Jin,Ali Ghahramani, Wenhua Chen, Yingdong He, Binghui Si. High-density thermal sensitivity maps of the human body. Building and Environment. 2020,167:106435.

• Maohui Luo, Jiaqing Xie, Yichen Yan, Zhihao Ke*, Peiran Yu, Zi Wang, Jingsi Zhang*. Comparing machine learning algorithms in predicting thermal sensation with ASHRAE Comfort Database II. Energy and Buildings. 2020, 210: 109776.

• Maohui Luo, Edward Arens*, Hui Zhang, Ali Ghahramani, Zhe Wang. Thermal comfort evaluated for combinations of energy-efficient personal ba and cooling devices. Building and Environment. 2018, 143: 206-216.

• Yi Gao, Xiaojing Li, Jinyuan Lou, Yange Lang, Shiying Hong, Xiang Zhou, Maohui Luo*. Dynamic thermal response and sensation prediction under different showering temperatures and flow rates with cold ambient environment. Energy and Buildings. 359 (2026), 117254.

• Xiaojing Li , Xiang Zhou , Jiajun Xu , Jingsi Zhang , Maohui Luo *, Tonghe Tian, Runze Xu , Yi Gao , Peixian Li. Using SHAP and Machine Learning for Dynamic Thermal Comfort Estimation during temperature ramp conditions with infrared camera. Building and Environment. 275(2025), 112824.

Honor and Award

• The World’s Top 2% Scientists (2024, 2025)

• Grand Prize, National Teaching Competition for Young Faculty in Building Environment and Energy Engineering (2023)

• Building and Environment Journal – Best Young Researcher Paper Award (2019, Ranked 4/7)

• Building and Environment Journal – Best Paper Award (2018, Ranked 9/65)

• Tsinghua University – Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation Award (2017)

• ASHRAE Golden Gate Chapter – Eric Thor Andresen Award (2016)