Faculty Spotlight: Dr. Richard Corsi
Feb 2007
As a native California, Richard Corsi, thought of Texas as a place for “cowboys, hicks, and guns.” Yet he has been here at the University in the CAEE Department for the last 14 years and has found Austin to be an ideal place to live. In fact he believes he has been transformed by Texas and is now known to spend his little spare time with his wife in West Texas, a place not suited for the timid.
Two passions drive Rich. He deeply cares about teaching and makes an effort to truly know his students. He is also trying to promote the issue of indoor air quality and along with Drs. Jeff Siegel and Atila Novoselac, they are working to create a legacy. They want to be known as the guys in Texas who are pushing for indoor air quality education and one of their major endeavors is the NSF IGERT Program for Indoor Environmental Science and Engineering (www.caee.utexas.edu/igert).
Drs. Siegel and Corsi realized their students were not getting adequate exposure to two critical and fundamental concepts, mass and energy balances, which are taught throughout the building environmental systems curriculum. They proposed developing Web-based tools to focus on the application of these fundamental concepts and they came to the FIC to design, develop, and evaluate this resource. Along with dedicated assistance from graduate student Michael Waring, the FIC team developed the Building Mass and Energy Balances Website at http://www.ce.utexas.edu/bmeb.
It wasn’t until Rich was prodded by Jeff to come into the FIC that he came to appreciate what the FIC provides. He wants other faculty “to get over feeling like you shouldn’t go to the FIC and give up your autonomy” for the FIC can compliment and expand what you do. We hope you take his advice and come see us soon.