A special congratulations to our faculty member and visiting professor Reena Tiwari, who received an Australian National Award for Teaching Excellence for 2013. The Australian Awards for University Teaching recognize quality teaching practice and outstanding contributions to student learning, and the Teaching Excellence Awards in particular celebrate a group of the nation’s most outstanding university teachers in their fields renowned for the excellence of their teaching, outstanding presentation skills and a broad and deep contribution to enhancing the quality of learning and teaching in higher education.
Reena teaches architecture and urban design at Curtin University and has built and managed successful inter-disciplinary units providing students and industry professionals with opportunities to work together on topical projects in Australia, India and Europe, in response to the need for applied, industry relevant, inter-disciplinary teaching.
She is passionate about democratic architecture and city building, and her teaching philosophy embodies a service learning model, in that students learn from communities, organisations and industry professionals by working closely with and for them on action projects. The classroom is thus redefined by taking it into the real world and prepares students for global problem solving and competency, while cultivating international and intercultural perspectives through building course units that go beyond national boundaries. Reena has been Visiting Scholar at the University of California, Berkeley, and has been a regular visiting professor of our masters course, which forms part of the prestigious Erasmus Mundus Masters Programme run by the European Commission.
We are proud to have her on our team!