Dr Grainne McGill
Strathclyde Chancellor's Fellow
Architecture
Personal statement
I am a Strathclyde Chancellor’s Fellow (Lecturer) in the Department of Architecture, University of Strathclyde. I hold a BSc (hons) in Architecture and MSc in Sustainable Design. I completed my PhD at Queen’s University Belfast in April 2016, undertaking research that investigated the impact of energy efficient design strategies on indoor air quality in homes. Between 2014 and 2020, I worked as a Researcher at the Mackintosh Environmental Architecture Research Unit (MEARU) at the Glasgow School of Art, where I taught environmental design and analysis in architecture and co-founded an MSc in Environmental Design. I am Committee Member and Membership Secretary of the UK Indoor Environments Group (UKIEG) and coordinator of the AHRC-funded Health Effects of Modern Airtight Construction (HEMAC) network. I am co-founder of the UK Air Quality Network (UKAQN) and an active member of the International Society of Indoor Air Quality (ISIAQ). I am a member of the Editorial Board for the journal Architectural Science Review and regular reviewer for numerous peer-reviewed journals. I have acted as co-editor for special issues of Architectural Science Review and the Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. I have also acted on various Scientific Review Committees and Organising Committees, chairing sessions at major national and international conferences. My research interests include low carbon design and evaluation post occupancy, indoor air quality and ventilation in housing, overheating and the impact of the built environment on health. I am particularly interested in multidisciplinary approaches to investigate the influence of architectural design on occupant health and wellbeing. I am open to supporting PhD students that are interested in the indoor built environment and health, particularly indoor air quality and ventilation performance in buildings.
Publications
- Co-designing equitable engagement - home health assessment in healthcare practice in Scotland
- Oliveira Sonja, MacLean Laura, McGill Grainne, Recart Carolina
- Design Research Society Conference 2026 (2026)
- Towards a harmonized database of indoor air contaminant concentrations : methods and application to CO2
- Rojas Gabriel, Staffer Reto, Casquero-Modrego Núria, Loomans Marcel, Abadie Marc, Alhindawi Ibrahim, Babich Francesco, Bekö Gabriel, Coggins Marie, Cremers Bart, Damberger Bernhard, Freundorfer Timm, Garcia-Ortega Sonia, Hassan Hala, Jones Benjamin, Justo Alonso Maria, Lara-Ibeas Irene, McGill Grainne, McGrath James, Monge-Barrio Aurora, Molina Constanza, Moreno-Rangel Alejandro, Tappler Peter, Toledo Linda
- Building and Environment Vol 292, pp. 1-19 (2026)
- https://doi.org/10.1016/j.buildenv.2026.114297
- PANDORA : An open-access database of indoor pollutant emission rates for IAQ modeling
- Abadie Marc, Geffre Eol, Picard Charles Florian, Loomans Marcel, Babich Francesco, Monge-Barrio Aurora, Licina Dusan, McGill Gráinne, Toledo Linda, Coggins Ann Marie, Pourkiaei Mohsen, Casquero-Modrego Núria, Molina Constanza, Sadrizadeh Sasan, McGrath James, Rojas-Kopeinig Gabriel
- Journal of Building Engineering Vol 114 (2025)
- https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jobe.2025.114216
- Connecting Home, Health and Healthcare Pathways : Workshop Report
- Butt Anosh, McGill Grainne, Recart Carolina, MacLean Laura, Oliveira Sonja
- (2025)
- https://doi.org/10.17868/strath.00094321
- Performance of a sensor-based passive ventilation control system in a temperate climate
- McGill Grainne, Mohamed Sara, Sharpe Tim
- International Conference of the International Society of Indoor Air Quality & Climate
(2024) - Ventilation study in contemporary Scottish homes
- Toledo Linda, McGill Grainne, Sharpe Tim
- International Conference of the International Society of Indoor Air Quality & Climate
(2024)
Professional Activities
- GEMINOA Project - Impact & Insights Workshop
- Participant
- 25/4/2025
- GEMINOA Scholls Indoor Ari Quality workshop
- Recipient
- 4/2025
- GEMINOA Schools Indoor air quality workshop
- Contributor
- 2/2025
- SmartSTEMS Event Sponsored by Telefonica Tech
- Host
- 15/1/2025
- Meet the Expert - See your Indoor Air Quality
- Contributor
- 9/11/2024
- Health Protection Research Unit: Environmental Exposures and Health (External organisation)
- Advisor
- 23/8/2023
Projects
- (3.9k) Refining the methodology for collecting data on the effects of climate change on sleep and mental health in care homes
- Crawford, Megan (Principal Investigator) Tse, Dwight (Principal Investigator) Witte, Kimia (Co-investigator) Dragojlovic-Oliveira, Sonja (Co-investigator) McGill, Grainne (Co-investigator) Quigley, John (Co-investigator) White, Chris (Co-investigator)
- 05-Jan-2026 - 31-Jan-2026
- Human-Centric, Healthy, Net-Zero Housing and the Role of Digitisation
- McGill, Grainne (Principal Investigator) Dragojlovic-Oliveira, Sonja (Co-investigator) Moreno-Rangel, Alejandro (Co-investigator)
- 02-Jan-2024 - 02-Jan-2025
- Strathclyde Centre for Doctoral Training: Energy-efficient Indoor Climate Control for Optimised Health
- McGill, Grainne (Principal Investigator) Tse, Dwight (Principal Investigator) Waites, William (Principal Investigator) Toledo, Linda (Principal Investigator) Moreno-Rangel, Alejandro (Principal Investigator) Sharpe, Tim (Principal Investigator) Dragojlovic-Oliveira, Sonja (Principal Investigator)
- This SCDT will provide three fully-funded PhD students with a world-class interdisciplinary research and training programme to bridge the net-zero design and construction skills gap whilst providing specialist skills in human-centric smart building design and digitisation for optimised health and resilience.
The increased risk of overheating, poor indoor air quality (IAQ) and inadequate ventilation in energy-efficient and/or net-zero buildings is now well evidenced, including the increasing gap between design expectations and energy performance, which is highly influenced by human behaviour. This CDT will train future innovators and leaders that can drive the transition to a healthy and energy-efficient built environment. The training will be led by experts in net-zero design, indoor air quality, building resilience, human behaviour and data analytics. Each project will be co-supervised by staff from different disciplines and all projects will involve industry partners and/or clinical advisors, to ensure that the research explored is based on an area of industry/clinical need.
The centre will provide highly-skilled future experts and leaders to tackle the challenges of delivering net-zero buildings that are human-oriented and optimise health. The CDT will deliver emerging multidisciplinary research endeavours by working across the departments of Architecture, Psychology and CIS, to decarbonise the built environment while providing a healthy and comfortable indoor environment.
SCDT students will become part of a growing PGR cohort, benefiting from peer-to-peer learning and an inclusive research culture. Opportunities will be provided to collaborate with a wide range of stakeholders (such as clinicians, industry specialists and the public), through internships/placements, personal development and specialist training, networking and interdisciplinary collaborations.
Successful candidates will be trained in writing manuscripts for publication in scientific journals, and strongly supported and encouraged to apply to external funding (such as travel grants), where appropriate. As part of the PhD programme, the candidate will be registered on the PGCert in Researcher Development. This is a 60-credit qualification covering personal effectiveness, governance, organisation, engagement, impact, and intellectual abilities, running in tandem with the PhD programme.
Candidates are expected to proactively take ownership of their project and creatively contribute to shaping it. We are seeking future leaders to develop knowledge and expertise required to address future challenges in the following three areas:
1. Linking indoor pollutant exposure and climate conditions with physical and psychological health outcomes,
2. Technological solutions for energy-efficient indoor climate control,
3. Understanding and analysis of psychological and behavioural factors that affect exposure indoors. - 01-Jan-2023 - 30-Jan-2026
- EPSRC IAA: PE/ citizen science additional allocation
- McGill, Grainne (Co-investigator)
- 01-Jan-2022 - 31-Jan-2025
- Research to identify if changes to guidance in standard 3.14 ventilation in 2015 have been effective in improving ventilation and indoor air quality
- Howieson, Stirling (Co-investigator) Sharpe, Tim (Principal Investigator) McGill, Grainne (Co-investigator) Toledo, Linda (Co-investigator) Tuohy, Paul Gerard (Principal Investigator)
- The 2015 regulations required all new dwellings to have CO2 monitors installed to alert the occupants to poor indoor air quality that would encourage them to open windows and provide purge ventilation.
- 01-Jan-2021 - 01-Jan-2023
- Measure, inform, nudge: an integrated, human-centric air quality measurement and visualisation system
- Sharpe, Tim (Principal Investigator) McGill, Grainne (Co-investigator) Toledo, Linda (Researcher)
- SBRI Phase 2 Project - follow on from RKES 201683
- 01-Jan-2021 - 31-Jan-2022
Contact
Dr
Grainne
McGill
Strathclyde Chancellor's Fellow
Architecture
Email: grainne.mcgill@strath.ac.uk
Tel: Unlisted