Tania Ullah (Fed)

Tania Ullah is a mechanical engineer in the Heat Transfer and Alternative Energy Systems Group of the Energy and Environment Division (EED) of the Engineering Laboratory (EL) at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Tania Ullah joined the NIST Heat Transfer and Alternative Energy Systems group in September 2009 after completing her master's degree.

Ms. Ullah has been the Principle Investigator of the Energy Measurements for Existing Residential Buildings project since 2010. This project is under the EL's Net-Zero Energy, High-Performance Buildings program and one of its aims is to improve estimates of residential whole-building energy consumption through the characterization of uncertainties of tools used in providing energy consumption feedback to building occupants. The World Business Council for Sustainable Development identified "lack of awareness and information on energy consumption and cost" as one of three major barriers to energy efficient behavior and reports that "technical devices to measure energy consumption and provide immediate feedback can help households to cut energy consumption by as much as 20 %." Ms. Ullah's role is to develop metrics and a test method to quantify the measurement accuracy and communications fidelity for wired and wireless sensor networks used in commercially-available Residential Energy Monitoring Systems (REMS), so these products can successfully aid building occupants to develop useful energy savings strategies.

In addition, Ms. Ullah has been involved in the Measuring Performance of Net-Zero Energy Homes project, also in the EL's Net-Zero Energy, High-Performance Buildings program. Her task has been to design and instrument the system by which the home will automate domestic water use by the virtual family, as well as to monitor the performance of the home's solar thermal water heating, heat pump water heating, and hot water distribution systems.

Ms. Ullah has also contributed to the development of testing methods for residential water heaters as a part of the DOE/NIST Appliance Program. Her work involves close collaboration with the members of ASHRAE Standards Producing Committee 118.2 to identify critical issues with current test methods and contributing and disseminating research results on the energy efficiency of various water heating technologies.