Kate Hickcox is a creative thinker with over 20 years of experience in lighting, research and design. Kate’s work focuses on sustainability, which means considering the complex aesthetic, technical, visual, and non-visual needs of people while at the same time equitably benefiting the economy, society, and the environment. Kate’s unique background blends the artistic with the practical and allows for the discovery of unique design solutions and innovative research-based strategies. Her work at PNNL includes supporting Energy Equity and Justice in Systems Technology work, leading decarbonization and circularity efforts for lighting and other mechanical and electrical systems, and work in outdoor nighttime lighting.
She has authored or co-authored many technical publications/reports and has presented at LightFair International, IALD, LEDucation, the CIE and the IES on topics including sustainability, life cycle assessment, subjective rating scales, designing for darkness, glare and brightness perception, lighting, and acoustics as well as lighting quality metrics.
Kate has been a guest critic and speaker at Rhode Island School of Design, Parsons/The New School, and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Architecture Department. She has taught at The New School, Parsons’ School of Constructed Environments and was also the Lighting Fellow for ‘Opening the Edge’, a project of the Design Trust for Public Space, in partnership with the New York City Housing Authority; proposed by Jane Greengold.
She is currently a member of the IES Standards Committee, member of the ASHRAE Building Decarbonization Whole Life Design Guide working group, voting member of the IES Technical Committee: Discomfort Glare in Outdoor Nighttime Environments and of the IES Sustainability Committee.