Scholarly Works > Featured Scholar

CAST Exceptional Scholar Continues to Inspire

Dr. Abi Aghayere, a professor with the civil engineering technology/environmental management and safety (CETEMS), has been selected as the CAST Exceptional Scholar for academic year 2006-7.

Since joining the RIT faculty in 1996, Aghayere has been a dedicated and passionate teacher, scholar and mentor. "Scholarship is something I’ve always mixed in with my teaching," says Aghayere. In addition to designing and teaching courses and certificate programs, Aghayere's scholarship activity has been steady and impressive: a paper he co-authored with CAST Dean Wiley McKinzie earned the Best Paper Award from the American Society for Engineering Education in 2003. More recently, Aghayere’s scholarship has focused on student learning and course assessment. In April 2005, he co-authored and presented a paper with four CET students ("Enhancing Student Learning through Continuous Course Assessment") as part of the RIT Faculty Scholars Series. Aghayere also has published two textbooks in the last two years, and has two more in the works. Aghayere has served as faculty advisor to the RIT steel bridge team since 1996; he also serves as faculty advisor to about 20 CET students.

"I view my students and me as working on the same team towards the goal of student...excellence, and view their success as my success; this motivates me to be the best teacher, mentor and coach that I can be," says Aghayere.

Originally from West Africa, Dr. Aghayere previously worked as a structural engineer in Toronto and as a teaching and research assistant at the University of Alberta in Canada. He also was a lecturer in civil engineering at the University of Ilorin in Nigeria. Dr. Aghayere received RIT’s Eisenhart Award for Outstanding Teaching in 2005.

If you are interested in being featured in an upcoming issue, send a paragraph to jlwcem@rit.edu.