William Healy, Ph.D

Dr. William M. Healy is the leader of and a supervisory mechanical engineer in the Heat Transfer and Alternative Energy Systems Group of the Energy and Environment Division (EED) of the Engineering Laboratory (EL) at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).

Dr. Healy joined the Heat Transfer and Alternative Energy Systems Group in March 1999 and assumed the duties of Group Leader in 2007. He manages the Net-Zero Energy, High-Performance Buildings Program within the Engineering Lab's Strategic Goal of Sustainable and Energy-Efficient Materials and Buildings. His current research interests involve the development of improved test methods and metrics for rating the performance of residential water heating systems and evaluation of the performance of net-zero energy homes. Dr. Healy has also investigated improved sensing methods for determining the moisture content within building envelopes. As a result of this effort, he and his collaborators were awarded a patent on the use of ultra-wideband radar to map the moisture state of a wall. Additional efforts have included support of the guarded hot plate development through finite element modeling and participation in efforts by the Department of Homeland Security to develop the infrastructure to allow for data from sensors to be propagated to applications that require knowledge of hazard levels.  For his work as part of several NIST teams, Dr. Healy received a Department of Commerce Silver Medal (2009) and a Department of Commerce Energy and Environmental Stewardship Award (2013).

Dr. Healy is a member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) and the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE). He has served as a voting member on ASHRAE TC 7.5: Smart Building Systems, ASHRAE TC 4.4: Building Materials and Building Envelope Performance, and ASHRAE SPC 118.2: Method of Test for Rating Residential Water Heaters.  He is also an instructor in the Johns Hopkins University Engineering for Professionals program, where he teaches courses in Applied Heat Transfer and Thermal Systems.