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Daniel Castro-Lacouture presents his work: Feasibility of Developing Self-Sustainable Ammonia-Powered Houses as part of the College of Architecture Research Forum.

The College of Architecture's COA Research Forums provide an informal setting for the community to learn about research within the College of Architecture. Forums are free and open to the public and participants are invited to explore ideas and identify opportunities for collaboration.

All talks are held in the Architecture Library from 11:00AM to 12:00PM on the last Thursday of August through April. Talks are 30 to 45 minutes followed by questions and discussion.

View past COA Research Forums through SMARTech, Georgia Tech's digital repository.

About Castro
Dr. Castro received his Civil Engineering degree from Universidad de Los Andes in 1994, where he worked for a year as a research assistant. From 1995 to 1998, he worked as an engineer for Drummond Limited in La Loma, Colombia, participating in the design and construction of earth dams, diversion ditches, ponds, roads, mine loadout, airstrip and living quarters, and being the supervisor of drilling, reclamation and surveying crews.

He went to the University of Reading in the UK to complete his Master of Science in Construction Management in 1999, while conducting research in the area of e-Commerce and training simulators for construction organizations in the Advanced Construction Technology Centre. The following year, Dr. Castro went to Purdue University where he received his Doctor of Philosophy degree in Civil Engineering in August 2003. Dr. Castro is a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers, the Construction Research Council and the International Association for Automation and Robotics in Construction.

Dr. Castro's research interests lie in the areas of material procurement, automation protocols and sustainable energy alternatives for construction projects. He is interested in investigating the linkage between web-based technologies and construction sustainable performance to get real-time data for project control. His research is establishing a new set of criteria and tools for linking information exchange architectures with sustainability assurance in a construction project setting. He has developed tools and methodologies for an automated construction material information exchange in a project setting, and is currently involved in research that focuses on the use of energy in buildings as a parameter for sustainability. Dr. Castro is a registered professional engineer by the Ohio Board.