Contact the Belfast School of Architecture and Built Environment

Professor Neil Hewitt

Professor/Director for Sustainable Technology

Neil J Hewitt was appointed Professor of Energy in 2008 and is Director of the Centre for Sustainable Technologies from 2008 until present. He is a Chartered Physicist and Chartered Engineer and is a member of the Institute of Physics, Institute of Refrigeration and the Energy Institute.

Professor Hewitt has initiated and worked on numerous significant European and UK Research Council funded research projects that have engaged academia, public and private bodies.

Professor Hewitt is an acknowledged expert in the field of heat pumps, both in their development and in their end-use, especially with energy storage in the emerging sector of demand side management. He has over 100 publications and is a regular invited conference speaker both nationally and abroad.

Professor Hewitt, in addition to membership of a number of editorial boards, is a memner of IEA Heat Pump Tasks and is a UK representative of the International Institute of Refrigeration Commission B2 Refrigerating Machinery.

Professor Neale Blair

Interim Head of the Belfast School of Architecture and Built Environment

Neale Blair is Professor of Urban and Regional Planning in the Belfast School of Architecture and the Built Environment (BSABE) at Ulster University. He was appointed Associate Head of BSABE in 2017. Neale is an expert in spatial planning policy and practice. Neale holds a PhD in regional spatial planning and is an active member of Ulster’s Built Environment Research Institute (BERI) and Centre for Research on Property and Planning (RPP).

External connections include chartered membership of the Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI), Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (Advance HE), and member of the National Planning Knowledge Group for the Office of the Planning Regulator (OPR). Neale is currently Deputy Chair of the Planning Schools Forum, which represents RTPI-accredited Planning Schools, and is a member of the RTPI's Education and Lifelong Learning Committee (ELLC). Neale chaired the Advisory Group that reviewed the Subject Benchmark Statement for Town and Country Planning (2024) and was External Examiner at the University of Manchester 2019-2023.

Current research interests include spatial governance and analysis; urban planning pedagogy, planning education in developing countries; visualisation of data to inform stakeholder engagement and decision making; and the use of technology – including Gen AI – to enhance participation in planning processes.  Neale has twenty years’ experience of research in cross-border spatial planning, working with stakeholders in the public, private and community sectors. Neale has been an external and internal PhD examiner and is an active PhD supervisor, currently supervising three doctoral students in Planning at Ulster. Publications include topics such as a social-ecological resilience agenda for urban design; 3D technology for enhancing resilience in the built environment; and the Dublin-Belfast Economic Corridor (DBEC).

Professor Jayanta Mondol

Research Director - Architecture, Built Environment & Planning

Jayanta Mondol is a Professor in Solar Energy Technologies and the Research Director at the Belfast School of Architecture and the Built Environment since 2019. He successfully led the submission for the Architecture Built Environment and Planning (UoA13) category in the REF2021 evaluation. Prior to his current role, he served as the Course Director for the BEng (Hons) Architectural Engineering and BEng (Hons) Energy and Building Services Engineering programs at Ulster University, where he played an instrumental role in the development of the Architectural Engineering program.

He holds a BSc (Hons) and MSc in Physics from Visva Bharati University, India, and an MTech in Energy Science and Technology from Jadavpur University, India. He completed his PhD at Ulster University in 2004. Prior to joining the academic position in 2008, he served as an RCUK Academic Research Fellow.

He is an esteemed member of several professional organisations including the Energy Institute, the Institute of Physics, and the International Solar Energy Society. He is also a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

His research interests focus on solar energy technologies, energy efficiency in buildings, multifunctional building facades, off-grid solar systems, energy system modelling and net-zero carbon buildings. He has successfully coordinated numerous multidisciplinary research projects, fostering collaborations with industry partners, academic institutions, and national and local stakeholders. His research has attracted extensive research funding from prestigious funding bodies such as EPSRC, Invest Northern Ireland, Royal Society, UK India Education and Research Initiative, Innovate UK, InterTradeIreland, and the EU. Notably, he served as the Project Manager and Principal Investigator for projects like 'SolaFin2Go' and 'SolaNetwork,' which were funded by EPSRC and Innovate UK.

Jayanta has served as the Work Group leader for the EU COST Action project (TU1205) and a working group member for the Bio-Energy action plan in Northern Ireland. He is an active member of the Climate Emergency Committee for The Royal Society of Ulster Architects (RUSA). He is a member of the Editorial Board for the Journal of Renewable Energy and Sustainable Buildings Journal. He has also contributed as a Guest Editor for several special issues of esteemed journals. Furthermore, he is recognised as a technical and scientific committee member for various international conferences. His expertise is valued as a regular reviewer for more than 30 international journals.

Jayanta has published extensively in reputable peer-reviewed journals, conference proceedings, and edited book chapters. Additionally, he has contributed to over 20 research reports for industrial-led research projects. His outstanding work has been recognised with awards at international conferences, such as WREC, ISES and EUROSUN.

Noel McCutcheon

Technical Planning and Development Manager