Background
Selkowitz was born March 8, 1948 and grew up in Newton, Massachusetts. His father was a pharmacist.
Selkowitz was born March 8, 1948 and grew up in Newton, Massachusetts. His father was a pharmacist.
Selkowitz graduated from Harvard University with a Bachelor of Arts in physics.
He is currently a senior advisor for building science at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. While an undergraduate, Selkowitz"s interest in the environment was increased through participation in Buckminster Fuller"s World Game. He received a Master of Fine Arts in Environmental Design from the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) in 1972.
Before beginning his career at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Laboratory), Selkowitz taught at CalArts and worked at a consulting engineering firm.
Selkowitz led research at Berkeley Laboratory to reduce the amount of heat transfer through windows. The low-emissivity (low-East) windows they developed have saved $7.7 billion on energy costs and 1.2 quadrillion BTUs, according to National Academy of Sciences" data.
Selkowitz had to convince window manufacturers of the benefits of low-East glass before its use became widespread.
Selkowitz received the ENR Award of Excellence "for relentlessly working to reduce the carbon footprint of buildings and for moving the nation toward better building performance, as well as for being the master of commercializing energy-efficient building technologies and the mastermind of FLEXLAB," the Facility for Low-Energy eXperiments in Buildings located at Berkeley Laboratory Selkowitz is a recipient of the Berkeley Laboratory Prize – Lifetime Achievement Award in the area of societal impact. This award honors a career of achievement and Selkowitz was recognized for his work to reduce energy use in buildings.
