Rate My Professor Usha Iyer-Raniga

Professor Usha Iyer-Raniga is a Professor at the School of Property, Construction and Project Management at RMIT University. She holds a B.Arch, M.A.S.A., and Ph.D., earned in the late 1990s from an Australian institution. Her career spans architectural practices in India, Canada, and Australia, followed by roles in private consulting and government focused on developing tools and regulatory compliance for energy efficiency in residential and commercial buildings. She commenced her academic tenure at RMIT University's Centre for Design and progressed to her current professorial role. Usha served as Co-lead of the United Nations One Planet Network’s Sustainable Buildings and Construction Programme from 2015 to 2022, which pioneered global efforts on circular built environment aligned with SDG12 and related goals including SDGs 8, 7, 15, 13, 6, and 17. She currently Co-leads the Circular Built Environment working group of the Global Alliance for Buildings and Construction, hosted by UNEP. Usha founded the Circular Economy Hub@RMIT and is the founding chair of the Circular Economy Research Network Asia Pacific since 2024. She directed the Integrated Circular Economy, Climate Change and Clean Energy Platform and the Victorian Circular Activator from 2021 to 2023.

Her research interests include sustainability and circularity in the built environment, energy efficiency and conservation, life cycle thinking and assessment, climate change resilience, policy and regulation for sustainability, urban greening, and heritage. With over 100 publications and 3,438 citations according to Google Scholar, notable works include the book 'Sustainable Development Research in the Asia-Pacific Region: Education, Cities, Infrastructure and Buildings' (2017, co-editor), 'Using the ReSOLVE framework for circularity in the building and construction industry in emerging markets' (2019, IOP Conference Series), 'Zero Energy in the Built Environment: A Holistic Understanding' (2019), and recent papers such as 'An exploratory study of capacity building for circular economy transitions in the built environment of the global south' (2026) and 'Public Housing Redevelopment in Melbourne: A Multidisciplinary Response' (2026). Usha has delivered keynote speeches at international conferences, served on boards including Director of Australasian Campuses Towards Sustainability since 2016, and contributed to UN advisory panels and industry committees. She coordinates and developed courses on Circular Built Environment and Sustainability in the Built Environment, and supervises Masters and PhD students.