Professor Houser is an expert in lighting and human factors at Oregon State University, where he holds a joint appointment as Chief Engineer at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL). He is co-founder of Lyralux, Inc., and former editor-in-chief of LEUKOS, the journal of the Illuminating Engineering Society. His work focuses on human perceptual and biological responses to light and applications of light within the built environment.

Professor Houser's teaching spans graduate courses on research methods, color science, and light sources, as well as undergraduate courses in lighting design and daylighting. At Penn State, he led Project CANDLE, an industry-university collaboration supported by the IALD Education Trust to advance lighting education. He has provided curriculum leadership as Architectural Engineering Graduate Program Officer at Penn State and Chair of the Architectural Engineering Curriculum Committee at the University of Nebraska. In 2019, he joined Oregon State University to help develop a new Architectural Engineering program. With support from the Nuckolls Fund for Lighting Education, he created a three-course lighting sequence: ARE 361 Fundamentals for Lighting Design, ARE 461 Lighting Design for the Built Environment I, and ARE 462 Lighting Design for the Built Environment II.

His research explores applied uses of light, including fundamental inquiries into human perceptual and biological responses, and the application of this knowledge to light source spectral design. Collaborating with students and supported by industry, government, and professional societies, Professor Houser has developed light sources with novel spectra informed by vision science models. These innovations have resulted in improved color perceptions, whiteness perception, and increased brightness-perception-per-watt compared to conventional sources, and numerous patents. His work on spectral tuning concepts for human photobiological health has demonstrated improvements in cognition and mood states of frail elders. His collaborators include over 20 lighting industry companies and government agencies such as the US Department of Energy and the US Federal Trade Commission. His interests also encompass research methods and the effective communication and critical evaluation of research results.

Professor Houser has contributed to more than 150 publications on light and lighting. His accolades include the CIBSE Leon Gaster and Walsh Weston Awards, Edison Report Lifetime Achievement Award, IES Taylor Technical Talent Award (three times), the IES Presidential Award. He is a Fellow of IES. He is one of the four editors of the 10th edition IES Lighting Handbook and has received five teaching awards throughout his career.