Environmental Systems · SUNY ESF

Alireza Khodayarkhani

Researcher · Engineer · Builder · Artist

I build sensors, run simulations, and study how buildings and cities breathe — bringing a decade of mechanical & CFD engineering into environmental research on indoor air quality, urban microclimate, and building resilience.

View the work Get in touch

Baker Lab · Syracuse, NY

Now Research Assistant, Baker Lab
Aug 2026 M.S. Environmental Science, SUNY ESF
Prior 10+ yrs mechanical design & CFD
Based Syracuse, New York

Fig. 01 — Focus areas

Research Focus

Four threads that keep pulling on each other — hardware that measures the environment, models that explain it, and buildings that have to survive it.

Sensing / IoT

Environmental Sensing & IoT

Multi-sensor hardware — including a 12-sensor ESP32 air-quality box and a LoRaWAN PIR occupancy network — validated against real-world ground truth.

Simulation

Urban Microclimate & Air Quality

ENVI-met modeling of highway pollution dispersion and green-infrastructure mitigation around the SUNY ESF campus corridor.

Building science

Resilience & Building Science

Chapter and figure contributions to Green Building Illustrated (3rd ed.), on passive survivability and indoor air quality under adverse conditions.

CFD / Thermal

Computational & Thermal Systems

A decade of CFD-driven mechanical design in Ansys Fluent — from HVAC systems to a smart evaporative cooling platform cutting energy use by 30%.

Fig. 02 — Selected work

Projects

Sensors in the field, models on the cluster, figures in print.

Home Occupancy Detection

A LoRaWAN PIR sensor network paired with a state-machine algorithm to detect home occupancy, validated minute-by-minute against Google Maps Timeline as ground truth.

94.97%Accuracy
95.73%F1 score
66Days validated

LoRaWAN
PIR sensors
Python
State machine

Apartment floor plan showing four PIR sensors and their 110-degree detection cones — Sensor placement · 110° detection cones

AQD Environmental Sensor Box

An ESP32-based air-quality device integrating twelve sensors — particulate matter, gases, wind, light, temperature and humidity — with live Firebase logging and a real-time web dashboard.

12Sensors
ESP32Core
LiveDashboard

ESP32
Arduino
Firebase
I²C / UART

The AQD-7 air quality monitoring device, a white enclosure with intake fan and ventilation slots — AQD-7 enclosure

I-81 Highway Air Quality Study

ENVI-met simulation of traffic-related pollution dispersion along the I-81 corridor adjacent to SUNY ESF, modelling green-space removal and restoration scenarios at two-metre resolution.

50×50×16Domain
2 mResolution
v5ENVI-met

ENVI-met v5
Microclimate
Scenario analysis

Aerial imagery of the I-81 corridor beside the SUNY ESF campus, comparing parking and green space — The I-81 study corridor from above

SUNY ESF Campus Microclimate Study

A full ENVI-met model of the SUNY ESF campus — buildings, terrain, and tree canopy resolved into five leaf-area-density classes — used to simulate pedestrian-level conditions on a winter cold day: wind speed, potential air temperature, and solar access at 1.5 m above ground.

1.5 mCut height
3.92 m/sPeak wind
5LAD classes

ENVI-met
Leaf-area density
Wind comfort
Solar access

Three-dimensional ENVI-met model of the SUNY ESF campus showing buildings and vegetation — Campus model · cold-day wind speed · air temperature at 1.5 m

ENVI-met cold-day wind speed simulation across the SUNY ESF campus at 1.5 metres — Campus model · cold-day wind speed · air temperature at 1.5 m

Green Building Illustrated, 3rd Ed.

Contributing chapter content and technical figures with Prof. Ian Shapiro and illustrator Frank Ching, covering resilience, passive survivability, and shelter-in-place design.

86Figures
Ch. 16Complete
WileyPublisher

Building science
Technical illustration
Wiley

Cover of Green Building Illustrated by Francis D. K. Ching and Ian M. Shapiro, published by Wiley — Green Building Illustrated · Wiley

Fig. 03 — Background

About

I'm a graduate Research Assistant at SUNY ESF's Baker Lab in Syracuse, NY, working under Prof. Shayan Mirzabeigi, and beginning a Master's program at SUNY ESF in August 2026.

Before moving into environmental research, I spent over a decade in mechanical design, CFD, and project management — designing HVAC systems, running Ansys Fluent simulations, and managing engineering teams in Tehran. That background now shapes how I approach environmental sensing and building science: as systems to be measured, modelled, and improved.

Experience

Sep 2025 — Present

Research Assistant, Thermal & Environmental Systems

SUNY ESF · Baker Lab
Aug 2024 — Aug 2025

Research Assistant, Thermal & Environmental Systems

SyracuseCoE
Jul 2020 — Aug 2023

Company Manager

AIROMAX
Jul 2020 — Aug 2023

Mechanical Designer, CFD Analyst & Project Manager

ElectroMotoTech — led development of a Smart Evaporative Cooling System (30% energy reduction, 25% water savings)
Jun 2009 — Jun 2020

Mechanical Design Engineer

Havayar Industrial Group

Education

Aug 2026 —

M.S., Environmental Science Incoming

SUNY College of Environmental Science & Forestry
2013 — 2015

M.S., Aerospace & Aeronautical Engineering

K. N. Toosi University of Technology
2007 — 2012

B.S., Mechanical Engineering

Islamic Azad University

Tools & Methods

Python
ENVI-met
Ansys Fluent
SolidWorks
Arduino / ESP32
Firebase
LoRaWAN
AutoCAD
Siemens 840D / CNC
Git

Fig. 04 — Beyond the lab

Art & Life

Sacred Geometry, in Marker

Outside of research, I draw detailed geometric compositions in marker on black canvas — including a full reproduction of the Notre-Dame rose window. The same precision that goes into a state-machine algorithm or a CFD mesh shows up here as radial symmetry and pattern. I'm currently developing a Sacred Geometry series exploring Gothic rose windows and Islamic geometric tilework.

On Two Wheels, and on the Pitch

I ride regularly and follow soccer closely — both a counterbalance to long stretches at a workstation and, if I'm honest, another kind of systems thinking: pacing, positioning, reading a changing field in real time.