We spend almost 90% of our lives indoors. As more frequent and more intense heat waves are expected due to climate change, indoor overheating is not just a matter of discomfort, but also a pressing global issue for health, productivity, and energy. Already research has shown that most heat mortalities happen at home. However, still little is understood on the association between indoor heat exposure and residents’ wellbeing. There is also a lack of information on the patterns of occupants’ chosen cooling strategies and the factors driving their behaviors. This presentation reports on a mixed-method study examining the associations between nighttime overheating in homes, occupant sleep quality, and the residents’ use of heat-coping strategies.

W. Victoria Lee holds a Master of Architecture from MIT and a MPhil in Environmental Design from the University of Cambridge, where as a Gates Scholar she also received a PhD in Architecture. Victoria’s research focuses on understanding the impact of and the contributing factors to indoor overheating. Her dissertation focused on exploring new approaches to assess and predict the indoor thermal environment, with a particular interest in health implications. As an Earth Institute Postdoctoral Fellow at Columbia University, she received a Cross-Cutting Initiative seed grant to examine the impact of indoor heat exposure on sleep quality, as well as occupants’ summertime cooling strategies and preferences.