Doctoral Researcher
Paz Araya is a doctoral researcher at IRI THESys. She has a Master in Energy Economics and the title of Mechanical Engineer. Before joining the institute, for 12 years she worked in studies on energy efficiency policies, energy education strategies and prospective supporting decision-makers for sustainable energy policies in Chile. Paz also has experience in energy-related communication projects for kids and the general public, giving talks and workshops about sustainable energy. She is currently part of the Chilean Energy Poverty Network, as coordinator of working group: “Energy policies and development models.
She is currently working in the project Living in cold houses, ¿fitting or retrofitting?
Practices of thermal comfort and improvement of housing in southern Chile, which aim to understand thermal comfort related social practices for houses under energy poverty in southern Chile. The focus are interrelations among social practices for coping with high or low indoor temperatures, in order to reach thermal comfort, and social practices for infrastructure modification, through thermal retrofit. She is also interested in analyse how recognizing thermal comfort social practices can impact actions and policy making for the improvement of already built house stock.
Research Interests
- Socio technical transitions in global south
- Energy Justice and Energy Poverty
- Thermal comfort social practices
