He holds a Master of Architecture from Instituto Superior Técnico - University of Lisbon (IST-UL) and continued to pursue his research endeavors at U.C. Berkeley’s College of Environmental Design where he earned his Ph.D.in a Ph.D. His doctoral dissertation presents new modeling methods for goal-oriented design procedures based on thermal and daylight simulations. His work explores new digital approaches to generate effective surrogate building models for thermal and daylight simulations and to implement heuristics that simplify search procedures in building optimization and analysis.
Algorithmic and Generative Design are important components of Dr. Santos’ work. Since 2009, he collaborated with the Algorithmic Design for Architecture (ADA) group based at INESC-ID at IST-UL focused on developing interfaces between whole-building energy software and domain-specific programming languages for architecture. More recently at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Grid Integration Group, he developed PyBEM, a small, python package for early-stage building energy simulation.
Dr. Santos’ most recent research interests focus on developing tools for visual comfort assessments and the quantification of the non-visual effects of daylight in building occupants, as well as, using machine learning techniques to streamline performance-based design methods. He is also an environmental design consultant specializing in daylight in buildings and building energy simulation and monitoring. He also provides sustainable design consultancy for various building types in both Europe and in the United States.