Nominated by his peers, the Department of Construction Management associate professor Mehmet Ozbek, was selected to receive the College of Health and Human Sciences Superior Faculty Service award. Ozbek is also celebrating ten years of service at CSU, during which time he has had significant accomplishments in facilitating research dissemination, industry and professional affiliations, and academic leadership.

Service to the profession

Ozbek is highly regarded for his service to the construction management profession. Specifically, he serves on the editorial board for the top two journals in the industry: ASC International Journal of Construction Education and Research, and the ASCE Journal of Construction Engineering and Management. For the former, he is one of three associate editors. Since assuming this role at the beginning of 2018, he has personally reviewed close to 60 papers in a 10-month time frame. For the latter, he has been an editor in one of the specialty areas of the journal since 2010. The fact that the journal has kept him in that position for such a lengthy time is indicative of his contributions to the journal, and commitment to the construction industry. Ozbek had also served as an active member, as well as subcommittee chair, on four national committees related to construction.

Contributions to service-learning

Having developed and volunteered, above and beyond his regular teaching load, to co-teach a service-learning class, Ozbek engaged at-risk teens and the community through hands-on service projects in Fort Collins. This service-learning course paired construction management students with at-risk teens from a local high school to complete full-scale, hands-on construction projects. For this course, Ozbek received the Provost’s N. Preston Davis Award for Instructional Innovation, as well as the CSU Instructional Innovation in Service-Learning Award. He founded the student chapter and remains the faculty adviser to the Construction Management Association of America student chapter.

Collaborative Ph.D. with Engineering

Ozbek served as the department’s graduate program coordinator for nine years and was instrumental in establishing a collaborative Ph.D. program with the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering.  Ozbek’s academic expertise and leadership has been sought at the national and international level as an invited speaker, reviewer, and academic program adviser.

The Superior Faculty Service Award is given to a faculty member with five or more years of experience in the College, who has made significant service contributions to the College, University, professional, or other off-campus organizations.

The Department of Construction Management is part of CSU’s College of Health and Human Sciences.