2010 Excellence in Teaching Winner: Premkumar Thodi

Short Biography of Premkumar Thodi

I am a final year PhD student in the Faculty of Oil & Gas Engineering. My current research focuses on the Risk Based Integrity Modeling of Offshore Process Components. Prior to joining for PhD in 2006, I worked as a Design Engineer for subsea structures and pipelines in Dubai (UAE) and Baku (Azerbaijan). I received my master’s degree in 2002, in Ocean Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras and the undergraduate degree in 2000, in Civil Engineering from the University of Kerala, India.

To me, teaching is a means to enhance learning. I see the role of a teacher as a facilitator to student-centered learning. In winter 2010, I had the opportunity to teach 50% of the course, Reliability Engineering. It was an interdisciplinary, piggy-back course in the Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science. In winter 2009, along with Dr. Faisal Khan, I was instrumental in the design and development of a distance education course material for Reliability Engineering. Apart from class room teaching, I have had close interactions with undergraduate students in eight courses as a Graduate Teaching Assistant (TA). My TA responsibilities included, problem solving in class room, demonstrating experiments in laboratory, guiding term projects, evaluating assignments, term projects and clarifying the student’s doubts through individual tutoring and e-mailing. As a part of my continuous efforts towards improving the teaching skills, I have undergone through the Memorial’s Graduate Program in Teaching (GPT), Teaching Opportunities for Graduate Students (TOGA), and a couple of professional development workshops conducted by the Instructional Development Office. On the research front, in September 2009, I was selected for the student paper award during the International Conference on Structural Safety and Reliability (ICOSSAR) taken place in Osaka, Japan.

I would like to thank the Graduate Student Union for selecting me to receive the Award of Excellence in Teaching. Furthermore, I would like to extend sincere thanks to my thesis supervisors, Dr. Faisal Khan and Dr. Mahmoud Haddara for their guidance and support, and the fellow graduate students who supported my nomination.