RIT Honors Brighton Man with Outstanding Teaching Award

Josef Török to receive award during convocation ceremony May 23

Note: Digital photograph available

Josef Török of Brighton has been selected a recipient of the Eisenhart Award for Outstanding Teaching from Rochester Institute of Technology. The prestigious award recognizes faculty excellence as determined through rigorous peer review.

"I love teaching," says Török, a professor of mechanical engineering in RIT’s Kate Gleason College of Engineering.

Students like his lively classes and easy-going nature. Despite the latter, he admits, he’s also demanding. "I expect my students to work hard," he says.

Török’s passion and communication skills help him connect with students and explain what can be abstract concepts of nonlinear dynamics, mathematical modeling and computational methods, his areas of expertise.

"I go way out on the limb to explain everything in complete detail, to make the complicated look easy," Török says. And, he adds, he can sense when he’s getting through to his students. "I’m totally in touch with my group," he says. "I know exactly when they’re following me and when they’re stumbling."

Török joined the RIT faculty in 1986 from The Ohio State University, where he taught and earned his master’s and doctoral degrees. In addition to teaching, he’s founder and director of RIT’s Estelle H. and Howard F. Carver Engineering Learning Center and active in RIT’s new microsystems engineering Ph.D. program. He also concentrates on writing, both professionally and recreationally.

Török wrote Analytical Mechanics with an Introduction to Dynamical Systems, an instructor’s solutions manual to Elementary Differential Equations and Boundary Value Problems, other supplemental text material and numerous journal articles. He’s currently working on engineering and mathematics books, a medieval romance novel (so far about 50 pages along, and "quite the opposite of everything I do," he says) and a cookbook containing recipes of 150 German, Hungarian and Mediterranean dishes.

The Esztergom, Hungary native enjoys cooking—especially outdoor grilling and Hungarian meals—and playing blues and jazz on the guitar. He travels yearly to Germany, where his youngest son Steven works as a systems analyst, and every other year to Hungary. Another son, Joseph, is an RIT student majoring in information technology.

Interacting with students, Török adds, keeps him feeling young. "I love sharing in their discoveries and their learning. It brings me a lot of joy."

Note: Note: RIT’s Eisenhart Award for Outstanding Teaching was established in 1965 by the Eisenhart family to recognize faculty excellence. Winners are chosen through rigorous peer review of student nominations. The late M. Herbert Eisenhart, chairman and president of Bausch & Lomb Inc., was an RIT trustee for more than 50 years. Richard Eisenhart, trustee emeritus and past chairman of RIT’s board of trustees, has served on the board since 1972.

Török will receive the award during RIT’s academic convocation ceremony, which begins at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, May 23.