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College of Engineering and Applied Sciences
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HomeAdministrationCore FacultyElizabeth L. Hewitt

Elizabeth L. Hewitt

PhotoAssociate Professor

Ph.D., Rutgers University; MUP,  New York University 

Courses Offered:

Externally-Funded Research Grants:

  • National Science Foundation (NSF), $299,922 (2021-2023). Principal Investigator, "EAGER-SAI: Collaborative Research: Behavioral theories for resilient and sustainable infrastructure – A new paradigm in performance assessment and modeling."
  • New York State Department of Education, $4.5m (2020-2025). Principal Investigator. Collegiate Science and Technology Entry Program (C-STEP) and Science and Technology Entry Program (STEP).
  • New York Sea Grant, $479, 083 (2023-2025). Co-Principal Investigator (with PI Anil Yazici). "Equitable Access to Long Island Sound Waterfront and Beaches through On-demand Mobility."
  • New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC), $4,249,090 (2019-2025). Co-Principal Investigator (with PI David Tonjes), “New York State Solid Waste Characterization.”
  • Environmental Research and Education Foundation (EREF), $149,984 (2019-2022). Principal Investigator, “The Influence of Social Norms on Recycling Behavior in Urban Multifamily Buildings.” (Project completed October 2022).
  • National Science Foundation, $49,765 (2019). Co-Principal Investigator (with PI Gang He), Workshop for “Data Science Across the Undergraduate Curriculum: University-Industry Online Case Studies on Applications of Data Science.” (Workshop held Jan 2019).

Selected Publications:

Hewitt, E., Wang, Y., Eck, A., and Tonjes, D. (2023). Keeping up with my neighbors: The influence of social norm feedback interventions on recycling behavior in urban multifamily buildings. Resources, Conservation and Recycling Advances. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rcradv.2023.200156.

Hewitt, E. & Boucher, J. (2021).From information to action: Exploring home retrofit decision-making after an energy audit. Buildings. doi: https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings11120631.

Tonjes, DJ, KL Thyberg and E. Hewitt. (2021). Better public decisions on COVID-19: a thought experiment in metrics. Public Health in Practice. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.puhip.2021.100208.

Hewitt, E. (2021). Contradictory conservation: The role of leadership in shaping energy efficiency culture in urban residential cooperative buildings. Special Issue: The Role of Energy Behaviors to Design Energy Policies for a Sustainable Future. Energies.14(3). doi: https://doi.org/10.3390/en14030648

Hewitt, E. and Wang, Y. (2020). Understanding the drivers of national-level energy audit behavior: Demographics and socioeconomic characteristics. Sustainability. 2020 (12) 2059. https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/5/2059

Wang, Y., and Hewitt, E. (2019). Exploring Plug-in Electric Vehicle (PEV) Adoption in U.S. Transport for Policy. Peer-reviewed proceedings of the International Energy and Sustainability Conference (IESC) 2019 (Farmingdale, NY). IEEE Xplore. doi: https://doi.org/10.1109/IESC47067.2019.8976770

Khansari, N. and Hewitt, E. (2019). Incorporating an agent-based decision tool to better understand occupant pathways to GHG reductions in buildings. Cities, vol. 90. doi: 10.1016/j.cities.2019.102503. 

Hewitt, E., Oberg, A., Coronado, C., and Andrews, C. (2019). Assessing “green” and “resilient” building features using a purposeful systems approach. Sustainable Cities and Society, vol. 48. doi: 10.1016/j.scs.2019.101546. 

Boucher, J., Araujo, K., and Hewitt, E. (2018). New York State Energy Audits: A Socio-Spatial Analysis. Resources, Conservation, and Recycling, 136 pp. 355-366. doi: 10.1016/j.resconrec.2018.05.009. Jordán-Cuebas, F., Krogmann, U., Andrews, C.J., Senick, J.S.,

Hewitt, E., Wener, R.E., Sorensen Allacci, M., and Plotnik, D. (2018). Understanding apartment end-use water consumption in two green residential multi-story buildings. Journal of Water Resources Planning & Management, 144(4). doi: 10.1061/(ASCE)WR.1943-5452.0000911.

Hewitt, E. (2017). Organizational characteristics in residential rental buildings: Exploring the role of centralization in energy outcomes, Ch.10 in W. Leal Filho, R. Marans, J. Callewaert (Eds.), Handbook of Sustainability and Social Science Research, World Sustainability Series. Springer. ISBN 978-3-319-67121-5. Chapter doi: 10.1007/978-3-319-67122-2_10.

Hewitt, E., Andrews, C., Senick, J. Wener, R., Krogmann, U. and Sorensen-Allacci, M. (2016).  Distinguishing between green building occupants’ reasoned and unplanned behaviors. Building Research and Information. 44(2) pp. 119-134. doi: 10.1080/09613218.2015.1015854.

Hewitt, E. (2016). Book Review, “People Habitat – 25 Ways to Think About Greener, Healthier Cities (F. K. Benfield).” Journal of Planning Education and Research (JPER). Advance online publication. doi: 10.1177/0739456X16652203

Background: 

Dr. Elizabeth Hewitt is an urban planner and social scientist, and her work explores human processes that impact energy, waste, and resilience in buildings and cities. She focuses on urban multifamily and commercial buildings and conducts research on occupant behavior in buildings; pro-environmental behavior; decision making for resilience (at the building scale and the city scale); occupant interactions with building technologies; organizational culture for energy, waste, and resilience; and policy interventions.

She is the Associate Director of the Waste Data and Analysis Center at Stony Brook and an affilated researcher with both the Center for Behavioral Political Economy at Stony Brook and the Center for Green Building at Rutgers.

Dr. Hewitt received her PhD from the Bloustein School of Planning & Public Policy at Rutgers University, and her doctoral studies were funded by a National Science Foundation (NSF) IGERT fellowship for interdisciplinary energy research. While at Rutgers, she conducted research at the Rutgers Center for Green Building on numerous NSF- and DOE-funded projects in commercial and multifamily residential buildings in New York City and Philadelphia. Before her time at Rutgers, she worked for a number of years as an urban planning practitioner, and has been involved with various policy and planning projects in New York City. From 2006-2010 she worked at the Alliance for Downtown New York, the largest business improvement district in North America, where she led the organization’s green building research and policy initiatives. She is LEED-accredited by the United States Green Building Council. Dr. Hewitt also holds a Master of Urban Planning (MUP) degree from New York University and a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Interior Design from the State University of New York, FIT.

Office: 1411 Computer Science
Phone: 631-632-3241
Email: elizabeth.hewitt@stonybrook.edu