Helen Mulligan is a qualified architect with expertise in climate responsive design; natural systems for commercial buildings; energy efficiency in the building stock; energy policy and emission permit trading; application of financial theory to sustainable decision making; and client consultation techniques.

She trained as an architect at the University of Cambridge, taking her BA, MA and Diploma in Architecture there. After experience in architectural practice, working largely on commercial, educational and cultural projects, she gained the Royal Institute of British Architects professional qualification.

Her doctoral dissertation, prepared at the Martin Centre for Architectural and Urban Studies, University of Cambridge, was on the thermal performance of vernacular underground dwellings. A director of CAR since 1990, she has applied her expertise in modelling low-energy systems to a wide variety of high profile developments such as the main stadium for the Sydney Olympic Games, the Potsdamer Platz redevelopment in Berlin and demonstration projects in energy efficient housing in Beijing in collaboration with the Building Research Institute of China. Research projects include work for the UN Commission for Human Settlements, several EU directorates and British government departments.

Dr. Mulligan has completed a sabbatical at the University of California, Berkeley, where her research topic at the Institute of Urban and Regional Development was Carbon emission permit trading in the international marketplace: implications for the built environment. A book, based on case studies assembled for her research and entitled The New Californian Architecture: resource efficiency for the 21st century, is to be published by Taylor & Francis.

She has supervised a number of student dissertations at postgraduate and doctoral level at the University of Cambridge, on subjects including the analysis of environmentally sustainable office buildings in urban China.