Applications for the 2024-2025 University of Manitoba Graduate Students’ Association (UMGSA) Teaching Award are now CLOSED.
2024-2025 GSA Teaching Award Recipient
Nandika Bandara
About
The purpose of the award is to recognize individuals who have made, in the estimate of their graduate students, a significant contribution to their teaching profession. Registered students in the Faculty of Graduate Studies are not eligible for this award. The award will include a cash prize of $500, and a scroll given at Fall Convocation during the following academic year to commemorate the honour. Graduate students are encouraged to nominate their thesis advisor, a seminar or course instructor, or a faculty member with whom they have conducted research. The Graduate Students’ Association Awards Committee is interested in selecting individuals who display a dedication to knowledge and sensitivity to their students and the student community.
To see the full history of this award click here.
Instructions
The deadline for the receipt of application materials is Friday, June 21, 2024 at 4 pm. Students are welcome to submit the application directly via google form.
UMGSA Teaching Award Application Instructions 2024-2025
Applications for the 2024-2025 UMGSA Teacher Award will closed on Friday, June 21, 2024 at 4 pm.
2023-2024 Teaching Award Recipient
Prof. Young-Jin Cha, Ph.D., P.Eng.
Dr. Cha is a tenured Associate Professor in the Department of Civil Engineering at the University of Manitoba. He received his Ph.D. in structural engineering from Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas in 2008, and served as a Postdoctoral Associate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T). His key scientific contribution is deep learning-based automated SHM with autonomous unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). He brought this topic to light with paper publications in top-ranking journals. Researchers, professors, scientists, students, and industry professionals from many countries have shown a strong interest in this innovative topic since 2016 and have conducted numerous follow-up studies. His journal article (Cha et al., 2017) published in CACAIE which is a top 1-2 ranked journal in the entire civil engineering field was reported as the lifetime topmost highly cited paper, and he was also reported as the lifetime second topmost highly cited author in this same journal. According to Google Scholar, he has received 7,338 citations, 1645 of which were received in 2022 (retrieved on September 6, 2023). In 2022, Elsevier Data Repository identified him as one of the most cited scientists in the field of civil engineering, ranking in the top 0.31%, and in the broader engineering field, where he ranked in the top 0.36% for single-year impact worldwide. He has been reported several hundred times as the most read author, with the most read research items and citations in the Civil Engineering Department at U of M, with more than 111,000 readings since his account on www.researchgate.net was opened (retrieved on September 6, 2023).