Lighting Lab
Department of Architectural Engineering
The Pennsylvania State University
About Our Lab
The Lighting Lab focuses on the interaction between humans and the built environments with respect to a wide range of applications on energy consumption, user interaction, and environmental impacts. The lab facilitates cross-disciplinary research to address socioeconomic, sociotechnical, and sociocognitive aspects of illumination design. Fundamental research enabled by the lab aims to improve our understanding of the human response to visual stimuli, while the applied research explores novel ways of utilizing this basic knowledge to design, operate, optimize, and maintain lighting systems.
Research areas
Light and health
Energy efficiency
Next-generation lighting systems
Architectural lighting
Museum lighting
Horticultural lighting
Color science
Visual perception
Pyschophysics
About us
Alp Durmus
Assistant Professor
Dr. Durmus conducts research on colorimetry, visual perception, image statistics, and human factors in lighting, including the non-visual impacts of optical radiation. His research investigates next-generation lighting systems that reduce energy consumption while increasing occupants’ well-being and satisfaction using psychophysical experiments and computational modeling.
J Mundinger
Research Technologist
Dr. J Mundinger is interested in color science, spectral optimization, design and development of multi-channel LED arrays, lighting control systems, and development of advanced dimming curves. He also developed a new multi-channel LED product as a collaborator for an incubator grant awarded by the Penn State College of Engineering.
Merve Oner
Postdoctoral Researcher
Merve Oner is a postdoctoral researcher investigating the circadian impacts of light on children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD).
Parisa Mahmoudzadeh
PhD candidate
Parisa’s doctoral research focuses on the development of a framework for lighting application efficacy (LAE). The new LAE metric will enable designers, engineers, and building professionals to quantify the efficiency of lighting applications holistically, as opposed to individual luminaires.
Zora Yue Liu
PhD candidate
Zora’s doctoral research investigates the various dimensions of the impact of anthropocentric light at night (ALAN). She has a masters degree in lighting design from University College London (UCL) in United Kingdom.
Alvaro Campos
BAE
Alvaro is an undergraduate student in Architectural Engineering. His research is focused on the multi-sensory perception chromatic lighting.
Reagan Warenda
BAE
Reagan is an undergraduate student in Architectural Engineering. Her research is focused on the subjective and objective responses to abstract light projections.
Olivia Knoechel
BAE
Olivia is an undergraduate student in Architectural Engineering. Her research is focused on the subjective and objective responses to chromatic lighting.
PAST MEMBERS
Yonger Chen [MAE]
George Zhu [MAE]
Christie Gonzalez [BAE]
Tina Wang [M.Eng]
Philip Dure [BAE]
Sela Plummer [BAE]
Jumanah Alawadhi [M.Eng]
Naser Shehab [M.Eng]
Wangyang Song [PhD]
Rugved Kore [PhD]
Eunice Wang [PhD]
