Draft:Holly Samuelson

Holly Samuelson (née Wailowski) is an American licensed architect and researcher currently serving as an associate professor of architecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Her research focuses on the impact of building design on human and environmental health.

Academic career
Samuelson earned a Master of Design in 2009 and a Doctor of Design in 2013 from Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design (GSD), where she was awarded the Gerald M. McCue Medal in 2009. She also holds a Bachelor of Architecture from Carnegie Mellon University, where she received the Henry Adams Medal (now the Medal for Academic Excellence ) from the American Institute of Architects. Samuelson served as the co-head for the Master of Design, Energy and Environment program from 2017 to 2022 and has held the position as associate professor of architecture at the GSD since 2020.

Professional career
Samuelson practiced as an architect in the Boston area from 2000 to 2007 before working as a sustainable building consultant from 2007 to 2008.

Selected architecture projects

 * CarMax Home Office, Richmond, VA., Mid-Atlantic Construction Magazine – Best Office Project of 2005, US Green Building Council James River Chapter – Award of Merit, Virginia Sustainable Building Network – Best Commercial Project of 2006


 * Art Interactive, Cambridge, MA.

Research and publications
Samuelson has been interviewed as an expert by media outlets including The Washington Post, Boston Globe, The Wall Street Journal, and the BBC. She has published on topics related to energy and carbon reductions in buildings, including advancing building design and operation workflows using building simulation and machine learning. She has also published on topics related to occupant health in a changing climate, including issues of heat vulnerability in buildings. As of March 2024, Samuelson has coauthored over 40 peer review scholarly papers that can be found via her Google Scholar Profile. Her design work on the CarMax Office Project has been published in the Journal of the Urban Land Institute and on the Art Interactive in The Boston Globe.

Selected honors
2023-Best Paper Award, Energy and Buildings

2017-First Place: International Building Performance Simulation Association Student Competition,

2014-Outstanding Young Contributor Award '

2013-First Place: International Building Performance Simulation Association Student Competition

Notable work
“Impact of Workplace Design on Perceived Work Performance and Well-Being: Home versus Office.” Srivastava, C., Murnane, E., Billington, S., Samuelson, H., Journal of Environmental Psychology, March 2024

“Transfer learning with deep neural networks for model predictive control of HVAC and natural ventilation…,”Chen, Tong, Zheng, Samuelson, Norford, Journal of Cleaner Production, May 2020

“Housing as a Critical Determinant of Heat Vulnerability and Health,” Samuelson, H., Baniassadi, A., Lin, A., Izaga Gonzalez, P., Brawley, T., Narula, T., Science of the Total Environment, February 2020

“Optimal Control of HVAC and Window Systems for Natural Ventilation Through Reinforcement Learning, ”Chen, Y., Norford, L., Samuelson, H., Malkawi, A., Energy and Buildings, March 2018 (Awarded Best Paper Award, Selected as one of top ten papers in Energy and Buildings in the past five years, 2018-2022)

“Parametric Energy Simulation in Early Design: High-Rise Residential Buildings in Urban Contexts, ”Samuelson, H., Claussnitzer, S., Goyal, A. Chen, Y., Romo-Castillo, A., Building & Environ., May 2016

“Modeling an Existing Building in DesignBuilder/EnergyPlus: Custom vs. Default Inputs,” Wasilowski, H. [maiden name], Reinhart, C., Proceedings of Building Simulation the IBPSA International Conference, Glasgow, Scotland, July

2009 Awarded Arup Engineering Best-Paper Prize for Simulation in Design