Biography
Sarah Billington is the Chair and UPS Foundation Professor of Civil & Environmental Engineering and a Senior Fellow in the Woods Institute for the Environment at Stanford University. From 1998-2002 she was an Assistant Professor at Cornell University. She received her B.S.E. with high honors in Civil Engineering & Operations Research and a certificate in Architecture Studies from Princeton University and her M.S. and Ph.D. in Structural Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin. Her research is driven by two questions: how do built environments impact human wellbeing, and how can human-centered engineering design improve and amplify these wellbeing impacts? Her research group examines how built features shape wellbeing across diverse populations and settings. These features range from access to nature and material choices to the use of ambient intelligence systems. With this knowledge, they develop tools, methods, and design interventions to improve wellbeing, and they pursue this work through direct collaboration with those most affected, from older adults and caregivers to residents, communities, and the workers and practitioners who shape the built environment itself. In the past, her group focused on the design and evaluation of sustainable, durable construction materials including bio-based composites and ductile cement-based composites.
