Remembering Dariush Arasteh

By Peter Yost

For 30 years, Dariush was a leader in all aspects of window energy efficiency research at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL). His colleagues at LBNL describe Dariush as brilliant, dedicated, irascible, energetic, and generous. I met Dariush in 2000 at an early development meeting for the LEED for Homes program. It was easy to warm to Dariush’s sharp but gentle passion for high-performance buildings. Whenever I had a technical question about window performance, I would start by pulling out “Residential Windows: A Guide to New Technology and Energy Performance”—Dariush is one of the authors of this seminal reference—and would often end up calling Dariush for an intense, passionate discussion about the latest on window performance, research, and product development.

Steve Selkowitz, head of the LBNL Window and Daylighting Group and the man who originally hired him, saw Dariush as “one who not only does ‘good science’ but is also understood, respected, and has a major impact in the business world.” Steve also shared that “Dariush was a friendly, generous, and helpful mentor to junior staff and a thoughtful and dependable colleague and collaborator with the department leadership. And his actions were almost always accompanied by soft-spoken humor, wit, and a disarming smile.”

Dariush’s colleague and friend Christian Kohler has put together a website for sharing thoughts or learning more about Dariush.

So long to a friend and colleague; you will be missed, Dariush.