Our team has just completed our industry report, IoT Cybersecurity in the Built Environment: Improving Facilities and IT Collaboration to Keep Our Buildings Smart and Secure. The report details current organizational, cultural, and process challenges on university and college campuses that impact IoT cybersecurity. The report also shares the collaborative strategies that IT and facilities personnel and leadership have pursued to mitigate risk and improve IoT procurement, implementation, and management for the built environment. In addition, our report provides a a broad range of recommendations to help building owners improve their smart building cybersecurity from design and construction to operations.

Happy reading!

On December 19th, our University of Washington team released the last three chapters of the AIA’s Guides for Equitable Practice:

• Chapter 7: Advancing Careers

• Chapter 8: Community Engagement

• Chapter 9: Measuring Progress

You can read more on the AIA’s Press Release for these final chapters and you can find the entire set of guides on their website. I’m really proud of our project team and the work we produced and thankful to all of our AIA reviewers and the AIA project management team for their hard work and support on the project.

I’m excited to announce that we are beginning our new NSF-funded research project project on IoT Security in the Built Environment this October 1st. Our amazing research team will spend the next three years studying (1) how O&M and IT groups currently share their knowledge and skills in order to improve IoT security and (2) how public policies and an organization’s own rules regarding privacy and security impact how IT and O&M collaborate. our research will generate knowledge around how IT and O&M professionals can work more effectively together to improve the security of our nation’s buildings and offer insights into how public policy may affect professional cybersecurity collaboration to manage IoT risk. Read the UW news release on our project or check out our project website to learn more about the study.

The second set of the American Institute of Architect’s Guides for Equitable Practice were released this summer. In this set you will find the following three chapters: Recruitment and Retention, Negotiation, and Mentorship and Sponsorship. What I love about these guides is that they provide individual architects, firms, and the professional organizations clear and achievable actions for creating a more inclusive and equitable workplace. I am so grateful to have been invited to write with Renée Cheng and Nancy Alexander on these chapters and have thuroughly enjoyed working with them as a team, as well as our graduate assistant, Cozy Hannula and graphic designer, Vadim Gershman. The Guides for Equitable Practice, have been done in partnership with the University of Washington and the University of Minnesota, and the American Institute of Architects’ Equity and the Future of Architecture Committee (EQFA). Check them out!