Role
Kate Simpson is an Associate Professor in the Centre for Sustainable Construction and Retrofit.
Career overview
My work is centered in retrofit, renovation and maintenance practice to ensure sustainable and healthy homes. This spans academic research, practice and charity work. It began with upgrading old buildings and progressed to considering operational energy use, indoor environment quality and related health impacts. I am interested to further consider products, materials and their environmental impacts toward affordable, ethical, user-friendly and realistic opportunities to scale up the transition toward net zero, while improving resilience of homes and communities and meeting these needs with skilled people in good jobs.
I hold a PhD in housing retrofit, with a focus on householder experiences, living environment comfort and indoor environment quality, from the LoLo CDT in Energy Demand, Architecture, Civil and Building Engineering and the Design School, Loughborough University. This followed an MRes with a focus on indoor air quality in schools and a BSc in Building Surveying from Leeds Beckett University. I have completed short research projects at UCL Energy Institute on fuel poverty alleviation and the University of Leeds on skills for net zero retrofit and offsite housing. Prior to research I worked as a trainee building surveyor at Gascoyne Cecil Estates, a CAD Technician with Making Plans and within the Research and Home Energy Teams at the Centre for Sustainable Energy.
External activity
I am currently a visiting researcher in the Environmental Research Group at Imperial College London (ICL) where I have been leading an EPSRC Impact Accelerator Account project on digital storage heaters in Independent Living schemes for older residents. I am an Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and provide guest lectures and walking tours in housing retrofit and evaluation for the Centre for Environmental Policy's Urban Sustainable Environment Option on the MSc Environmental Technologies Course, Manchester School of Architecture's Climate Change team and University of Leeds MSc Sustainable Cities' Housing unit. I previously co-led a HNC in Construction at University Centre, North Lindsey College.
I am motivated to create positive impact through my work through constructive collaborations with industry partners, community engagement and via industry groups such as the National Retrofit Hub, the Low Energy Transformation Initiative, People Powered Retrofit and Care & Repair in Leeds.
Sponsors and collaborators
I have been funded by EPSRC as an impact project lead, Researcher Co-Investigator and MRes and PhD Researcher; ESRC via three impact projects, Lloyds Register Foundation for a post-doctoral research project and the Association of Colleges Scholarship fund via North Lindsey College, the CDT Energy Network and the Centre for Systems Engineering and Innovation, totalling approximately £1.4m.
Press expertise
I am open to discussing my research widely and received media training via the Grantham Institute, Imperial College London. I have previously taken part in two BBC Radio 5Live panels on retrofit (2022), informed a retrofit show for BBC Radio 4 and been quoted in the Guardian, Forbes and other media channels. I have also been a guest on the Zero Ambitions Podcast (2023) and Imperial College London Podcast (2022). I have won awards for collaboration and creativity in public engagement, including video production and immersive experience activities.
