Rate My Professor John Fernandez

In 2008, Fernández founded and directs the MIT Urban Metabolism Group, a multidisciplinary effort examining the resource intensity of cities and design and technology pathways for sustainable urbanization. Group research features material flow analyses of cities across North and South America, Europe, and Asia; sustainable transition pathways for China's building sector at provincial and city scales; a system dynamics model of Singapore's water system; an alternative urban technology scenario for Lagos, Nigeria; and a global typology of urban resource consumption derived from comprehensive resource intensity data. This typology has influenced urban policy and thinking at international agencies, partner universities, and academic centers, spawning initiatives for technology development tailored to specific city types. The group recently inaugurated the African Urban Metabolism Network in Cape Town, convening academic, government, business, and agency partners to advance decarbonized energy, water, food, transportation, and waste systems in African cities. Earlier, his research addressed materials for high-performance buildings, including collaboration with Mike Ashby of the University of Cambridge and Granta Design on the first materials selector for sustainable building design. Fernández is co-director of MIT's International Design Center, author or co-author of two books including Sustainable Urban Metabolism (2013, with Paulo Ferrão), numerous articles in journals such as Science, Journal of Industrial Ecology, Building and Environment, and Energy Policy, and nine book chapters. He led the publication of A National Green Building Research Agenda (2007), has organized or chaired seven international conferences, chairs Sustainable Urban Systems for the International Society of Industrial Ecology, and is associate editor of Sustainable Cities and Society. Previously director of the Building Technology Program and MIT Environmental Solutions Initiative, he held the MIT Class of 1957 Career Development Professorship (2002-2005), is a life member of Clare Hall, Cambridge (following a 2003 visiting fellowship), served on NSF review panels, DOE Roadmap 2020 Advisory Committee, USGBC research committee, boards of New Ecology Inc. and Fraunhofer Center for Sustainable Energy, and various MIT committees including Faculty Policy Committee, Campus Sustainability Task Force, and Institute Planning Committee.