Teaching and mentoring
- 4
- Current graduate students
- 8
- Graduate alumni
- 2025
- ASCE ExCEEd Teaching Fellow
Teaching
Evidence-based teaching
Teaching approach
01
Clear learning objectives
Each lesson is built around explicit learning objectives, a practice reinforced through the 2025 ASCE ExCEEd Teaching Workshop.
02
Active, open classroom
Students concentrate on understanding concepts, ask questions without hesitation and connect each topic to real-world engineering.
03
Entrepreneurial mindset
Structures and mechanics lessons link technical analysis to design decisions, stakeholder needs, resilience and value creation, an approach developed through the 2026 KEEN EMCE workshop.
04
Reflection and feedback
Self-assessment, extended office-hour conversations and end-of-term student feedback guide continual course improvement.
I pursue teaching excellence with the same rigor that drives my research.
KEEN Engineering Unleashed EMCE Workshop
June 2026Completed the four-day Embedding an Entrepreneurial Mindset in Civil Engineering: Structures and Mechanics (EMCE) workshop in Nashville, Tennessee, hosted by KEEN Engineering Unleashed, on bringing curiosity, connections and value creation into structures and mechanics courses.
Expanding the NEST Innovator
Fall 2025Recognized by the Kennesaw State University Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL) for evidence-based teaching practices that support student success.
ASCE ExCEEd Teaching Fellow
2025Joined the ASCE ExCEEd Teaching Fellows after two intensive weeks in the 2025 ExCEEd (Excellence in Civil Engineering Education) Teaching Workshop.
PCI Professors Conference
2024Engaged with educators and industry experts in Pennsylvania on precast and prestressed concrete education and innovative teaching methods.
Mentoring
Mentoring the next generation
Ajaya Subedi
MSc student, Kennesaw State University
Competition winner · 2026
Winner, Graduate Three Minute Thesis (3MT) Competition
Named one of three winners among 29 MSc and PhD presenters at the Southern Polytechnic College of Engineering and Engineering Technology for the talk “Beyond Strength: Building for Resilience.”
Kamal Gbolahon Oladele
PhD student, Kennesaw State University
Invited talk · 2026
Poster and invited lightning talk, 2026 SCD Symposium
Presented in the Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning session of the 2026 Science and Cyberinfrastructure for Discovery Symposium, examining gaps in AI-driven concrete pavement assessment and the path toward more quantitative, reliable and engineering-informed evaluation.
Alumni theses
Thesis research completed by graduate alumni at Idaho State University.
Kshitiz Raisal
MSc 2025
Comparative Study of UFPs Made From 316L SS Via Conventional Rolled Plate and Additive Manufacturing
Raghav Sharma Poudel
MSc 2025
Seismic Response of High-Strength Steel Reinforced Ultra-High-Performance Concrete (UHPC) Bridge Piers Using Factorial Design of Experiment
Suraj Dahal
MSc 2025
Double UFP Metallic Dissipators for Seismic Protection of Precast Diaphragms
Kathryn Hogarth
PhD 2024
Experimental Investigation and Analytical Validation of Post-Earthquake Repair Methods for an Innovative Precast Pier System
Aashish Deo
MSc 2024
Enhancing Shear Transfer Across 90-Degree Slab-to-Wall Concrete Connections Using +/- 45 Degree Bidirectional Fiber Reinforced Polymer Composites
Manish Acharya
MSc 2024
Compressive Behavior of Ultra-High Performance Concrete (UHPC) Confined with Titanium Alloy Ties
Pawan Bhattarai
MSc 2024
Stress-Strain Behavior of Confined Green Concrete with Precipitated Calcium Carbonate and Upcycled Concrete Aggregate
Samjhana Rajbhandari
MSc 2024
Machine Learning-Based Strength Prediction of Green Concrete Utilizing Wastewater
Mentoring milestones
2024
First MSc thesis defended
Pawan Bhattarai became the first MSc student co-advised by Dr. Wakjira at Idaho State University to defend his thesis.
2024
Four defenses in less than 48 hours
Samjhana Rajbhandari, Aashish Deo and Manish Acharya defended soon after, completing four MSc defenses in less than 48 hours.
2025
Seven graduate students advised
Two further MSc defenses brought the number of graduate students advised at Idaho State University to seven.
Prospective students
Join the lab
Graduate and undergraduate openings are listed on the open positions page. Questions about courses or advising are welcome by email.