Leon Glicksman has been the head of the Building Technology Program in the Department of Architecture for the past 10 years. He has worked on research and consulting related to energy-efficient building components and design, indoor air flow and indoor air quality. He developed the simulation program for heat pumps which forms the basis for one of the most popular heat pump programs available today. He did basic studies to improve thermal insulation for buildings during the period when CFCs were removed from insulation. He has directed several experimental studies of air circulation and buildings which are used as benchmarks for CFD programs in use today. He has also been carrying out basic studies on the to Hydrodynamics and heat transfer of fluidized beds for clean combustion of dirty fuels.

Currently, he is leading an MIT effort to develop energy-efficient, sustainable building technologies and compatible designs. This program is carrying out research on natural ventilation of buildings, passive dehumidification, use of ground coupled heat pumps and large energy distribution networks, building designs to reduce energy use, and integration of energy-efficient measures with indoor air quality considerations. A series of residential demonstrations, as part of large scale projects, will be built in Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen China working jointly with researchers from Tsinghua University in Beijing.

A study of the application of natural ventilation to US buildings to improve indoor air quality and reduce energy use for air conditioning is underway. In a joint program with Harvard, Glicksman and coworkers are developing a web site for advanced envelope systems that can be easily used by architects and developers in the early stages of design. Guidelines for sustainable buildings for the MIT campus are being defined.

Glicksman is a consultant to numerous agencies and companies, the principal investigator on several research projects, and a member of the ASHRAE, AIChE, and ASME. He is the author of more than a hundred and fifty articles published in refereed journals or proceedings. Glicksman is the recipient of the George Macomber Professorship of Construction Management Award since 1999.

Among his awards are the ASHRAE 1999 Poster Presentation Award and the 1999 Technical/Symposium Paper Award (1999), the Melville Medal of American Society of Mechanical Engineers (1970) and the Robert T. Knapp Award of the Fluids Engineering Division of ASME (1969). He received his BS (1959) and PhD (1964) in mechanical engineering from MIT and earned an MS in mechanical engineering from Stanford University in 1960.