INTERVIEW | KEVIN KELLY OPEN TO CHANGE To rise to the challenge of delivering safe and healthy net zero carbon buildings, the building services engineering industry must embrace diversity and become more inclusive, says new CIBSE President Kevin Kelly. He talks to Alex Smith about plans for his year in office and how hes already taken action to get more women on the CIBSE Board P CURRICULUM VITAE A professor emeritus and research fellow, Technological University (TU) Dublin, Kelly remains active in PhD research supervision and in editing research for the online SDAR Journal. Career Began in 1970, as a 15-year-old apprentice electrician. In 1978, he started training as an electrical services engineer and, in 1983, entered Dublin Institute of Technology (DIT) to teach electrical apprentices. Led the development of electrical services engineering programmes at degree level in the mid-1990s, which allowed advanced entry for electrical apprentices. Retired as head of school of multidisciplinary technologies and was previously head of department of electrical services engineering at DIT/TU Dublin. Education First-class honours in building services engineering from Dublin University (Trinity College); MSc (education and management Hons) from Dublin City University; doctoral degree in education professor by DIT. CIBSE Past chairman of CIBSE Ireland (2005-06); Past president SLL (2013-14); CIBSE Silver Medal awarded in 2015. rofessor Kevin Kelly has taken on the Presidency of CIBSE during a time of profound change for the building services industry. In his inauguration speech last month, he described three external factors that were causing upheaval in the industry: the consequences of the Grenfell Tower fire, Covid-19 and climate change. Kelly described Covid-19 as a hammer blow that had thrown up health challenges for engineers that they have never faced before. At the same time, climate change was forcing engineers to take urgent action to deliver net-zero buildings, while also having to prepare for a fundamental change in building safety brought about by the response to the Grenfell fire. Kelly believes engineers want to change, but, to do so, he feels they must pay more attention to the way their buildings actually perform. Im not convinced that, the way people are building, they are doing things for the planet, he says. The designs might be OK, but that performance gap exists after the building is occupied. What are we doing to close the gap? Kelly thinks engineers should be carrying out more research on their own buildings to understand the impact of their design and innovations on performance. Theres no such thing as a research laboratory if youre a building services engineer, he says. The lab is the building you have just created. Youve got lots of data, which you can extract to see if the building performs as well as you expected. Describing himself as an academic and engineer, Kelly is keen to encourage Lifelong learner Kevin Kelly is keen to provide ladders of opportunity for all within the industry collaboration between industry and universities. He says that engineers, short of time or resource to evaluate their buildings, could look to researchers in academia for help. When I talk to engineers, they ask, how am I going to find time to evaluate performance?; I tell them they have a data-rich environment and there are postgraduate students who dont have enough data for research. Lifelong learning Kelly says he is a lifelong learner. He completed his primary building services 16 June 2021 www.cibsejournal.com CIBSE June 21 pp16-19 Kevin Kelly.indd 16 21/05/2021 15:47