Yu Ann serves as an Associate on RMI’s Carbon-Free Buildings team, where she works on the Building Electrification initiative. In this capacity, she works to eliminate fossil fuels from our buildings in a manner that guarantees healthy, sustainable, and permanently affordable homes for all. Yu Ann currently researches the co-benefits of whole-home retrofit packages, particularly for frontline and environmental justice communities. She works on these issues at both a state and local level, with a particular focus on New York State and New York City. Furthermore, she’s investigating the role that public and affordable housing programs can play in driving faster adoption of green building practices and leading the housing market to equitable decarbonization.
Before coming to RMI, Yu Ann helped the New York City Housing Authority develop its decarbonization roadmap as an Environmental Defense Fund Climate Corps fellow. She has also conducted research to understand mechanisms that leverage private capital for the decarbonization of multifamily affordable housing and the importance of intersectional economy-wide climate policy.
In a previous life, Yu Ann served as a trial monitor at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia and worked on transitional justice and postconflict resolution in Myanmar, Thailand, and Indonesia. In addition, she has in various capacities investigated forced labor and human trafficking in Hong Kong and across Southeast Asia to promote better migration standards and equitable worker rights and to abolish forced labor.
MPA, Energy and Environment, Columbia University
BSocSc, Psychology (minor in Journalism), University of Hong Kong
New York, NY
The New York City Council is on the cusp of passing a landmark bill (Introduction 2317) that requires new buildings to be free of fossil fuels, including natural gas. The bill’s passage would represent a landmark moment for the electrification movement: the first all-electric new construction policy in America’s…
Low-income communities continue to grapple with poor housing quality, high energy costs, and disproportionate health burdens stemming from fossil fuel pollution in their homes and communities.
To meet U.S.’ climate goals and protect public health, we need to comprehensively retrofit low-income households through beneficial electrification.
New York officials ushered in a new era of equitable climate action last week, as the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) announced its groundbreaking portfolio-wide strategic plan for reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The NYCHA Climate Mitigation Roadmap is the authority’s most ambitious plan to date, committing the…
This week saw a breakthrough for regulation of indoor air quality in the United States. On September 30, the California Energy Commission (CEC) held a workshop on the health effects of gas appliances. This historic workshop highlighted the ways in which the CEC can help reduce the health impacts…
As the COVID-19 pandemic relentlessly creeps closer to claiming a million lives worldwide, it’s never been more important to understand what makes us vulnerable to the worst effects of the virus. While the risk factors of COVID-19 are still under extensive investigation, new research shows that air pollution plays…