Shu Nawawi

Biography

Shuhaib (Shu) Nawawi is a research scholar in the Sustainable Service Systems Research Group of the IIASA Energy, Climate, and Environment Program. His work contributes to the development of the MESSAGEix-Buildings model for global building-sector analysis, with a focus on circularity, demand-side mitigation, energy poverty, and equitable building decarbonization pathways. He develops modeling approaches to assess how changes in building stocks, technologies, household energy use, and materials demand shape future energy demand, emissions, resource use, and policy-relevant distributional outcomes.

Before joining IIASA, Nawawi was a PhD student and researcher at the University of Michigan, USA. His doctoral research developed multi-scale quantitative models of US residential decarbonization, spanning air-source heat pump performance, building-level thermal response, housing stock evolution, and sufficiency-oriented demand reduction. His work examined the conditions under which technological, behavioral, and structural changes can reduce residential energy demand and emissions while supporting thermal comfort and household wellbeing.

Nawawi holds a PhD in Environment and Sustainability and a master’s degree in Energy Systems Engineering from the University of Michigan. During his doctoral studies, he participated in the IIASA Young Scientists Summer Program (YSSP). He also previously worked as a business development executive at PETRONAS in Malaysia and as an Environmental Defense Fund Climate Corps Fellow.

Last update: 13 MAY 2026