Elizabeth L. Hewitt

Biography

Dr. Elizabeth L. Hewitt focuses on the technological, social, and policy-based challenges surrounding energy consumption in the built environment. In particular, she explores occupant behavior in green and conventional buildings, the role of values and norms in shaping energy and environmental behavior, and the technological and policy approaches to addressing demand-side energy consumption in buildings and cities. Current projects include the analysis of New York City energy disclosure data through an organizational behavior lens, the development of a framework to extend organizational theory to buildings, and a qualitative case study of energy use in cooperative buildings. Dr. Hewitt is trained as an urban planner and social scientist, and received her PhD from the Bloustein School of Planning & Public Policy at Rutgers University. Her doctoral studies were funded by a prestigious National Science Foundation (NSF) IGERT fellowship for interdisciplinary energy research. While at Rutgers, she conducted research at the Rutgers Center for Green Building on numerous NSF- and DOE-funded projects in commercial and multifamily residential buildings in New York City and Philadelphia. Before her time at Rutgers, she worked for a number of years as an urban planning practitioner, and has been involved with various policy and planning projects in New York City. From 2006-2010 she worked at the Alliance for Downtown New York, the largest business improvement district in North America, where she led the organization’s green building research and policy initiatives. She is LEED-accredited by the United States Green Building Council. Dr. Hewitt also holds a Master of Urban Planning (MUP) degree from New York University and a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Interior Design from the State University of New York, FIT.

Research Interest

Building occupant behavior; social science and behavioral energy research; organizational energy issues; green building design and technology; environmental economics