Buildings Are Our Best Medicine - Mutating versions of a virus in the familiar Coronavirus family has created chaos in our communities and in the entire world. Questions about COVID-19 disease transmission, mortality rates and our own immune response resulted in fear, confusion and discord in our homes, schools, offices – and in fact, all enclosed spaces. Despite this turmoil, the pandemic has also had a positive effect. People are much more aware of the role of the indoor environment in promoting disease or in supporting our health. Thankfully, we have a solid foundation of scientific data from studies in microbiology, medicine and building science that can guide management of IAQ to mitigate outbreaks of infectious disease, as well as to optimize the indoor environment for human health and productivity in all times.

Dr. Taylor will present studies on building interventions that optimize the health of human occupants and decrease the threat of microbial pathogens such as COVID-19. Communication between medical and building professionals, such as in this presentation, along with your input will help us fight back and regain our footing. Attend this presentation to learn about the power of the indoor environment to keep us safe and healthy during COVID-19 and beyond.

PDH Approved

Presented By:

Dr. Stephanie Taylor – ASHRAE Distinguished Lecturer

Dr. Stephanie Taylor received her MD from Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, followed by clinical practice in Pediatric Oncology and research on cellular growth control mechanisms. During her clinical work she recognized that the hospital building could be a powerful factor in patient infections. As she struggled to understand building design and indoor air management, she recognized a big gap in her knowledge. To help fill this gap, Dr. Taylor returned to school to complete a master’s degree program in Architecture.

After several years working in an architecture firm which focused on hospital design, Dr. Taylor founded Taylor Healthcare Consulting, Inc., a physician-led company that specializes in designing, building and maintaining hospitals and other commercial buildings for optimal occupant health and productivity.

To reach more building owners, managers, and occupants, she scaled her consulting work in 2020 with the founding of Building4Health, Inc (B4H). Their sensor suite, analytical platform and customer feedback dashboard makes visible the complex relationships among the indoor environment, humans, and the building microbiome – thus allowing a determination of whether an indoor ecosystem has a positive or negative impact on inhabitant health. B4H has created the first human health standard for defining and evaluating the impact of the indoor environment on human physiology.

Dr. Taylor is on multiple international advisory boards for indoor air standards, is a Harvard Medical School Incite Health Fellowship, an ASHRAE Distinguished Lecturer and a member of the Epidemic Task Force and Environmental Health Committee.

When not working on understanding the relationship between the built environment and occupant health, Dr. Taylor loves to skydive and hang out with her seven dogs at her home in Stowe, Vermont.