Kemal Celik

Assistant Professor of Civil and Urban Engineering Affiliation: NYU Abu Dhabi
Education: PhD University of California, Berkeley

Research Websites: AMBER Lab

Research Areas: Construction materials, energy efficiency, sustainable and functional structural materials


Kemal Celik is an Assistant Professor of Civil Engineering at New York University in Abu Dhabi and holds an appointment with New York University, Tandon School of Engineering as Global Network Assistant Professor. Professor Celik is the director of the Advanced Materials and Building Efficiency Research Laboratory (AMBER Lab) at NYU Abu Dhabi. He received his Ph.D. degree in Civil and Environmental Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley, with a major in Structural Engineering, Mechanics & Materials, and two minors in Geoengineering and Material Science & Engineering. He holds MS and BS degrees in Civil Engineering from Istanbul University.

Prior to joining New York University Abu Dhabi, Celik was a Postdoctoral Scholar at the University of California, Berkeley, and Singapore-Berkeley Building Efficiency and Sustainability in the Tropics (SinBerBEST) program, an international collaboration led by the University of California, Berkeley.

Dr. Celik’s work focuses on construction materials and building energy efficiency to develop sustainable and multi-functional structural materials. To this end, he conducts multi-scale and interdisciplinary research. His research interests include characterization and development of sustainable and energy-efficient construction materials, low carbon cements, alkali-activated cementitious material, multi-functional building envelopes, and prediction and evaluation of daylight distribution through a complex fenestration system with a hybrid-simulation integrating physical- and computational- based data.

His selected and recent achievements are the National Science Foundation (NSF) Award, the ADEK Award for Research Excellence (AARE 2019), Golden Lion at Venice Architecture Biennale, 2021 with National Pavilion of UAE as an exhibitor, NYUAD Research Enhancement Fund Award, New York University Research Challenge Fund, the University of California, Berkeley Outstanding Graduate Student Instructor Award, University of California, Berkeley Conference Grant, SCMT3 Outstanding Paper Award, Ministry of National Education of Turkey Scholarship, and Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK) fellowship.

Courses Taught