Tikalsky receives Fulbright Specialist Award to Uzbekistan at Namangan Institute of Engineering and Technology
Wednesday, May 3, 2023
Media Contact: Kristi Wheeler | Manager, CEAT marketing and Communications | 405-744-5831 | kristi.wheeler@okstate.edu
The U.S. Department of State and the Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board announced that Dr. Paul Tikalsky, dean of the College of Engineering, Architecture and Technology (CEAT) at Oklahoma State University has received a Fulbright Specialist Program award.
As a Fulbright Scholar, Tikalsky will complete a project at Namangan Institute of Engineering and Technology in Uzbekistan that aims to exchange knowledge and establish partnerships benefiting participants, institutions, and communities both in the U.S. and overseas through educational and training activities within the field of engineering education.
Fulbright Specialists are a diverse group of highly experienced, well-established faculty members and professionals who represent a wide variety of academic disciplines and professions. Tikalsky will travel to Uzbekistan for six weeks to serve as expert consultants on education, faculty development and institutional planning.
“Oklahoma State’s transformation toward interdisciplinary training of engineers with industrial partnerships and hands-on experiential project-based education is being recognized around the world as the future of engineering in a rapidly changing world,” Tikalsky said. “Through the Fulbright program, I will work with Uzbekistan’s higher education leaders to define a pathway for them to do the same.”
Tikalsky received his Bachelor of Science in civil and environmental engineering from the University of Wisconsin, and both his master's and doctorate in structural engineering from the University of Texas at Austin.
Tikalsky has served as the dean at OSU since 2012. Previously, he was the head of the Department in Civil and Environmental (and Nuclear) Engineering at the University of Utah and as a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Penn State University.
Tikalsky is an elected member of the Czech National Academy of Engineering. He is a registered professional engineer, registered disaster service safety assessment engineer and a certified commercial building structural inspector. He has served as a consulting engineer and expert in concrete, construction materials and structural engineering on specialized structures throughout his career.
Tikalsky has received numerous awards including his selection as a fellow of the American Concrete Institute, a fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers, and the Joe W. Kelly Award from the American Concrete Institute. He was twice named the State of Utah's Engineering Educator of the Year. Tikalsky served as a member of a U.S.-Trade Mission to Algeria and served a senior research fellow at the Czech National Academy of Sciences in Prague. He is an elected life member of the following honor societies: Phi Beta Delta, Chi Epsilon, Tau Beta Pi and Phi Eta Sigma.
Since its establishment in 1946, the Fulbright Program has given more than 400,000 students, scholars, teachers, artists and scientists the opportunity to study, teach and conduct research, exchange ideas, and contribute to finding solutions to shared international concerns.
Fulbright Scholars address critical global issues in all disciplines, while building relationships, knowledge and leadership in support of the long-term interests of the United States. Fulbright alumni have achieved distinction in many fields, including 60 who have been awarded the Nobel Prize, 88 who have received Pulitzer Prizes and 39 who have served as a head of state or government.