Dr. Aasifa Rounak receives Teaching Excellence Award

A lecturer at the Automotive Engineering school at the Chang’an Dublin International College of Transportation, Aasifa Rounak is one of the awardees of the Teaching Excellence Award by the College of Engineering and Architecture at University College Dublin in 2024. This award recognizes her commitment to teaching and student learning in her courses on Solid Mechanics 1, Solid Mechanics 2, and Vehicle Structural Analysis that she delivers in the Autumn term.

The award is part of the UCD Teaching and Learning Awards scheme, which celebrates staff members who make exceptional contributions to teaching and the enhancement of student learning. This year, 107 individuals were nominated by College of Engineering and Architecture students and colleagues, with only 8 recipients chosen to receive a €500 award for further career development or teaching enhancement activities. This recognition reflects her ongoing commitment to not only delivering high-quality education but also fostering an inclusive and supportive learning environment for all her students.

Aasifa’s selection came after receiving 16 nominations from students who highlighted her teaching approach. One student wrote, “The teacher's Solid Mechanics class is very good, and I think I have gained a lot of knowledge this semester. Teacher Aasifa was very good at answering our writing style and was meticulous in her teaching content, continuing to study diligently outside of class. This spirit is worth learning from.” Another commented, “Professor Rounak is organized, focused, enthusiastic, and strict with her classmates. The teaching content is rich and effective, and the teaching process is respectful to the students. Sometimes, there is some humor. I have learned a lot in her class, and she is a respectable and professional teacher.” Another student remarked “Concise and connotative teaching content, innovative and practical teaching practice, responsible Q&A attitude, and very excellent teacher”. Parallely, as UCD staff teach at Xi’an, they also supervise undergraduate, Masters and PhD theses back at Dublin. One of Aasifa’s Masters students wrote “Aasifa was an excellent supervisor for my Master's project. She encouraged and guided me throughout the year and it was always a pleasure working with her. Despite having many other responsibilities, she always made time to help me work through any problems I was having. She also encouraged me to apply to conferences and for research papers expanding my opportunities as a masters student. I will be sad to say goodbye to her this September, but I hope she is somebody I will work with again in the future.”

The award panel acknowledged Aasifa’s work as well. “Your ability to teach complicated subjects by deploying visual mechanisms to connect with students was praised, and recognition of your willingness to introduce alternative teaching practices to include all students,” they noted to her in their recommendation. Aasifa acknowledges that it takes a village, and would like to express her sincere gratitude to all her colleagues, particularly her joint module coordinators of the course Prof. Liming Ma, Prof. Guohua Zhu, Prof. Luo Geng, Prof. Hongbo Tang, Prof. Wang Fei and Prof. Li Zhaokai for extending their support through the years, Prof. Neal Murphy and Prof. Alojz Ivankovicz, for generously sharing their extensively developed notes. She is also grateful to Prof. Jufan Zhang for his support in integrating her module with his in Stage 4, which significantly enhanced the quality of the course. Additionally, Aasifa extends her thanks to Prof. William Smith for his assistance in onboarding her to the program and addressing grading-related matters.

Dr. Rounak with her Automotive Engineering students in Xi'an.