Marco-Felipe King
Lecturer in Building Engineering and Infection Transmission in the School of Civil Engineering, University of Leeds. He follows air, pathogens and people through real rooms, and co-founded this network so that engineering work would meet health, policy and the social sciences.
What Marco-Felipe does in the network
Marco-Felipe is one of three directors who set the network's direction, decide what it funds and keep it honest about whether the research is reaching anyone outside the university.
His own work is the engineering half of the question. He uses computational fluid dynamics to follow air, pathogens and people through real rooms, then couples that to risk assessment so the output is not an attractive airflow picture but an estimate of who is likely to get ill and what a design change would do about it. A lot of it happens in hospitals, where the stakes and the constraints are both high.
The research behind it
More than fifty publications, an h-index of 23 and over 1,900 citations, including more than twenty-five joint papers with Prof. Catherine Noakes. The ones with the most direct bearing on buildings:
Selected work
-
Experimental analysis to quantify inactivation of microorganisms by Far-UVC irradiation in indoor environments
Building and Environment, 2025. With Waseem Hiwar, Louise Fletcher, Catherine Noakes and others.Far-UVC is one of the more promising air disinfection technologies. This measures what it actually does to microorganisms indoors rather than in theory.
-
The Wells-Riley model revisited II: parameter uncertainty and population heterogeneity
Risk Analysis, 2026. With Martín López-García and Catherine Noakes.How far the standard airborne risk equation can be trusted once you account for uncertain inputs and for the fact that people differ.
-
A quantitative microbial risk assessment approach to estimate exposure to SARS-CoV-2 on a bus
Journal of Transport and Health, 2024. With Martín López-García.Exposure inside a real enclosed space, and how ventilation and occupancy change it.
The full publication list is on his research website.
Ask Marco-Felipe about
- How ventilation changes infection risk in a real room
- Computational fluid dynamics for buildings, and what it is good and bad at
- Hospital ward environments and infection control
- Air cleaning technologies, including Far-UVC, and whether they deliver
- How occupant behaviour, including hand and surface contact, drives exposure
- Running a doctoral training centre and a research group
In the network
-
Co-founded the network, summer 2024
Started with Martín López-García and Irene Mussio as a Horizons Challenge Network at the University of Leeds. See the full story.
-
Co-editor, UKIEG 2025 Book of Abstracts
Edited with Martín López-García and Irene Mussio, published with ISBN 978-1-914241-91-8. View the publication.
-
Interview
On computational fluid dynamics, infection transmission and the future of healthy building design. Read the interview.
For press and comms
Approved copy you can lift straight into a programme, a press release or an event listing.
Name and style
- Full name
- Marco-Felipe King
- The first name is hyphenated. No accents.
- Later mentions
- King
- Title
- Lecturer in Building Engineering and Infection Transmission
- School of Civil Engineering, University of Leeds.
- Network role
- Co-Founder and Director
- Healthy Buildings Network Leeds.
One line
Marco-Felipe King is Lecturer in Building Engineering and Infection Transmission at the University of Leeds and a co-founder and director of the Healthy Buildings Network Leeds.
Fifty words
Marco-Felipe King is Lecturer in Building Engineering and Infection Transmission at the University of Leeds and a co-founder and director of the Healthy Buildings Network Leeds. He models how air, pathogens and people move through buildings, using computational fluid dynamics and risk assessment to show how design and operation change who gets ill.
Hundred words
Marco-Felipe King is Lecturer in Building Engineering and Infection Transmission at the University of Leeds and a co-founder and director of the Healthy Buildings Network Leeds. His research combines computational fluid dynamics with quantitative microbial risk assessment to understand how air, pathogens and occupants interact in real buildings, much of it in hospitals. He is Co-Director of the EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Future Fluid Dynamics and directs the Water, Public Health and Environmental Engineering research group at Leeds. He co-founded the network in 2024 and co-edited the UKIEG 2025 Book of Abstracts.
Headshot
Cleared for use in network and partner communications. Please credit the Healthy Buildings Network Leeds where a credit line is used.
Download original (512 by 384px)