Jenn McArthur

Jenn McArthur is a prominent building scientist, mechanical engineer, and consultant in Canada. As a subject matter expert in smart technologies, sustainability, and real estate, McArthur is passionate about decarbonizing existing buildings and rethinking energy consumption.

With two decades of industry experience and a Ph.D. in Management, McArthur brings a practical perspective to research. She actively collaborates with government, enterprises, start-ups, academics, and students to develop new solutions and policies that result in future-friendly buildings. One of the recent highlights for McArthur was serving on the advisory board for the City of Toronto to inform its Net Zero by 2040 strategy. “When I saw that work come to fruition, I felt a great sense of professional pride,” she says.  

As an Associate Professor and the Associate Chair for the Masters of Project Management in the Built Environment, McArthur seeks to instill that same pride in her students. McArthur says, “Watching my grad students get excited about the research results and see the kind of impact they can make, there's nothing in the world better than that.”

Principal Investigator for the Smart Campus Integration and Testing Lab.

Bringing together industry and interdisciplinary researchers, McArthur is leading the development of the world’s first building to be 100 percent digitally enabled, which involves using a digital twin to assess the energy consumption and performance of TMU’s buildings. 

Smart Buildings Initiative Lead

McArthur established a consortium in 2019 to develop a Pathway to Smart Building Adoption and collaborates with over thirty private sector partners and researchers across four universities to help Canadian communities decarbonize their buildings while accounting for human interactions, energy needs, and data privacy. 

Dimensions Faculty Lead for the Faculty of Engineering and Architectural Science. 

The Dimensions Program at TMU was established to eliminate inequities within its research ecosystem. In her role, McArthur educates faculty members and informs policies to ensure equity, diversity, inclusion, and accessibility are considered at every phase of research.

Specializations

• Building Information Modeling
• Facility Management
• Occupant wellness and productivity
• Existing building simulation
• Smart building systems
• Portfolio retrofit optimization
• Sustainable building design
• Agile project management in architecture & engineering practice