Join us for our first meeting of the 2026-2027 ASHRAE year!

Please arrive at 11:30am for networking and lunch. The presentation will start at 12:00pm.

Presentation Topic/Summary: Defining and Assessing Resilience

The increasing threat to communities from storms, floods, wildfire, and extreme temperatures has heightened the focus on the resilience of the built environment. Merriam-Webster defines resilience as “an ability to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change.” While resilience is a simple concept, incorporating resilience into buildings and communities can be extremely complicated. To evaluate building and community resilience it can be useful to examine it through a series of lenses, including personal or emotional experience, financial impact and community impact. This presentation uses multiple lenses to discuss aspects of resilience (mitigation, disruptive events, response and recovery) in order to understand the ecosystem of standards, specifications, and codes used to define and assess resilience. Many of the evaluation criteria in these standards have grown out of past work on energy efficiency, durability and sustainability. These criteria range in scope from the individual building to the community level. This presentation will review the industry activities currently underway to assess and improve the resilience of the built environment.

Speaker: Dr. Theresa Weston, ASHRAE Distinguished Lecturer

Dr. Theresa Weston is a building science research professional specializing in the durability and energy efficiency of buildings. Prior to starting the Holt Weston Consultancy, Dr. Weston was a DuPont Laureate with the DuPont Safety and Construction business, having worked for DuPont for 35 years. DuPont Laureate is the highest technical professional level in the DuPont company.

Dr. Weston received her Bachelor of Science degree in Chemical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Master's and PhD degrees in Chemical Engineering, both from the California Institute of Technology.

Dr. Weston has been a member of ASHRAE for over 25 years, having served on the Technical Activities Committee, the Standards Committee, and as the Chair of the Residential Buildings Committee, as well as serving on a number of Technical and Standards Project Committees. As Chair of ANSI/ASHRAE/IES Standard 90.2-2018, Energy-Efficient Design of Low-Rise Residential Buildings, Theresa led the committee to transform the standard into a leadership standard. She was also a member of the project committee which produced the initial publication of ASHRAE Standard 160, Criteria for Moisture-Control Design Analysis in Buildings. Theresa is currently a member of SSPC 189.1 and a member of the SSPC 90.1 Envelope Subcommittee. Dr. Weston has received the ASHRAE Distinguished Service Award, the ASHRAE Exceptional Service Award, and the ASHRAE Residential Service Award.

*Please register early so that we can give an accurate head count. Late fees will go into effect Thursday, August 13th after 5:00pm.

Tickets

$35.00 Member Ticket
$45.00 after 05:00 pm August 13

$45.00 Non-Member Ticket
$55.00 after 05:00 pm August 13