Selection Criteria for Lecturer Position

Dr. Morteza Khashehchi

March, 2022

This document addresses the selection criteria for the postdoc position, UQ

Qualification: A PhD in mechanical engineering with experience in fluid dynamics;

 I hold a PhD degree from the Department of Mechanical Engineering, The

University of Melbourne, Australia in field of Fluid Dynamics.

Teaching profile: A growing teaching profile with contributions across a range of teaching
responsibilities.

 My teaching experience was started when I started my BSc working for high
school students by preparing them for the university entrance examination. I
started teaching mathematics and physics for honour students.
 I have been actively engaged in teaching at Melbourne University. I have tutored
many undergraduate subjects such as Heat Transfer, Solid Mechanics (2,3),
Control Systems, Computational Fluid Dynamics, Aerodynamics, Design and
Process and Thermo-Fluids. I also acted as senior tutor for Introduction to
Mechanical Engineering. My undergraduate degree and Masters courses in
Mechanical Engineering have enriched my understanding of the requirements
hard work and being proactive were the keys to my success in those roles.
Moreover, I was always among the top 5% of the class during the course of my
education which provides me with confidence when I teach the same subjects. I
was also selected as the best tutor based on the student’s feedbacks on the
Mechanical Engineering Department at 2009.
 I believe I can effectively contribute to the teaching load of the Mechanical
Engineering. In addition to my tutoring experiences I have attended in the
Graduate Certificate in Higher Education course which was funded by the
chancellor of the University of Queensland. This course is aimed to improve the
new academic staff’s teaching style. In that course I could learn how to be a
course coordinator and how to run a subject in the university format. In a part of
the course I have run several lectures regarding the Fluid dynamics subjects. That
was a real class through which I was asked to transfer the material to the students
using the new method which was taught in the class. I am also selected as a
resteach to be involved in teaching Thermo-Fluid subject on the second semester
of 2013 at the University of Queensland.
  As a lecturer in the University of Tehran, I have run several subjects in field of
Thermodynamics, Renewable energies, Heat Transfer, and Fluid Dynamics for
the undergraduate and postgraduate students. Basically, I am interested in
teaching the materials I have learned and the results of the assessment of my class
show that my teaching method has been successful. The average of the student
class assessments is 97 out of 100. I have also taught a few subjects of
Mathematics for undergraduate and graduate students. I believe that Mathematics
is the heart of any science.
 Currently I am teaching mechanical engineering courses at the University of
Western England, Oman campus, on the subjects related to mechanical
engineering and mathematics.
 I have participated in a series of training courses for teachers and demonstrators at
Melbourne University such as Research Supervisor Accreditation Program,
Teaching Development for Demonstrators Program, and Sessional Teaching
Training Workshop.

Curriculum and assessment design: understanding of curriculum and assessment design

including the development of teaching and learning materials and assessment tasks.

 As stated above, I have Graduate Certificate in Higher Education from the

University of Queensland. A part of the materials delivered in those courses was
related to developing a course profiles and assessment procedures. Since then I
used that methodology in preparation of the courses I have thought so far.
 In the system of teaching at the university of West of England, module
specification should be provided at the beginning of the semester. That document
includes Aim of the subject, Learning Outcomes, Reading lists and Assessment
procedure. This document creates a pathway of how to run the subject until the
end of the semester. Based on my teaching experience, I have learned to make a
continuous assessment in my subjects by designing a comprehensive course
profile for any subject prior to the semester.

Pedagogies: experience in teaching and learning approaches and technologies that generate
student engagement and learning outcomes.

 I believe new technologies could help us to enhance our ability to deliver

engineering materials much faster than the traditional methods. For example, in
my postgraduate courses, I ask students to go through a scientific paper and
prepare a 10 minutes’ presentation for others showing the method and the
outcomes of that work. It helps them to understand some complicated engineering
subjects and enhance their self-confidence. Students also are asked to engage the
group activities by presenting some outcomes to the others. My experience shows
that delivering taught materials using different words by other students will
increase the process of learning. In some cases, I invite an external lecturer to
deliver a subject to the students or make a group discussion about the subject with
them.
Quality research outputs: research outputs consistent with discipline norms.

 As stated in my CV I have been involved with a numerous experimental and

numerical engineering research projects. In most cases the topic of my research
was related to my background study, thermos-fluid mechanical engineering.
 My research activities started from MSc where I was asked to develop a software
for designing the thermodynamics cycle of a Micro-turbine.
 I continued my research at the university of Melbourne by working in the field of
fluid dynamics which was consistent with the mechanical engineering field.
 As a research fellow at the University of Queensland I was involved in several
experimental and numerical projects. We bought a new PIV and PDPA equipment
to run measurements in fluid dynamics and thermal analysis of porous media. In
addition to these academicals research projects, I was the manager of the fluid lab
at the school of Mechanical and Mining Engineering at the University of
Queensland.
 As an academic staff at the University of Tehran, my responsibility was to define,
develop, supervise and manage engineering research projects. To this end I have
launched a thermo-fluid mechanical laboratory where students are capable to run
experimental and numerical projects. The outcome of those research activities
was a few publications in field of fluid dynamics and renewable energies.
 Based on the fact that the role of the University of West of England at Oman is to
teach mechanical engineering subjects and no research activities have defined so
far, I proposed a series of research for all academic staff and now I am stablishing
a big lab for mechanical engineering department to run different projects on it.

Funding and other external research support: contributions to funding applications or other
external mechanisms of research support.

 Since I started my PhD, I have been actively engaged with academic sectors, the
government, industry and professional bodies. I have already got some external
support for my current and future research.
 My PhD was funded by an ARC research grant, which was awarded after 6
months of my commencement date.
 After starting my research fellow position at the University of Queensland, I was
awarded a start-up research grant by the university.
 I was awarded a start-up research grant when I start my job at the University of
Tehran. I also got three national research grants from industrial and one big grant
in the field of desalination from government sectors.
  To establish the lab at the University of West of England I got a start-up grant
from the university.
 I believe that with my strong research profile in such a short period, I would soon
be able to obtain large research grants.

Translation and impact: contributions to the development of partnerships with research end-
users or external collaborations resulting in quality outputs.

 Having looked to the list of my publications shows the independency of research

of an international standard and collaboration with the research interests of other
academic staff.
 My CV shows that I have presented more than 20 conference papers all over the
world which most of them were presented in conferences titled mechanical
engineering. In those conferences I could find several friends in academic and
industrial areas who helped me in the rest of my research.
 In addition to my formal education in PhD project at the University of Melbourne,
due to the reconstruction procedure of the wind tunnel, I started a series of
experiments at the Monash University. I worked with Prof. Julio Soria in the same
experimental area which resulted in two papers on Tomo-PIV experiments.
Moreover, as a Research Fellow at the Queensland University, I have pursued two
minor topics with the department of Agriculture& Food science which resulted a
journal paper.
 I am now working with a few teams around the world to establish the lab in our
university and am sure the outcome of these collaboration will enhance the quality
of research in our group.
 Based on the above examples, I believe I have demonstrated very successful
examples of team work. I collaborated with colleagues in a wide range such as
experimental techniques, computer sciences, and Mechanical Engineering.

Supervision outcomes: participation in student supervision at the undergraduate, postgraduate

coursework, or higher degree by research level.

 I am supervising about 20 undergrad students in their final year project subject,

and have had about 25 on last semester at the University of the West of England,
Oman.
 I have had about 50 undergrad students in the university of Tehran.
 During my postdoc period I have supervised one PhD (as co-supervisor) and 2
MSc students, and in Tehran university I am supervising 4 PhD and 10 MSc
students with collaboration with my colleagues.
 Note that, most of my postgraduate students are working in different area of
Energy discipline.

Responsible conduct of research: Behavior consistent with the responsible conduct of

research.
  I believe that we are responsible about the environment we are living with. My
background record shows that I have been on time in reporting the progress of the
projects to the correspondence sector. I am also a good time manager in
conducting the research projects and all students are happy working with me. It is
perhaps because of the fact that I initiate the project with a detailed plan and
spend much time developing the project.
 I also know that in any research activity there will be a number of challenges that
need to be organised.

Citizenship: a record of workplace behavior consistent with UQ values: creativity, excellence,

truth, integrity, and courage.

 I have done a 3 years’ postdoc at the UQ and I am familiar with the workplace of
UQ. Basically, I am a workaholic person and try to be useful for the place I am
working with. I am now establishing the biggest engineering lab in Oman,
although it was not in my duty.
 I have established a new fluid dynamics lab at the University of Tehran. I
designed and manufactured a wind tunnel within that lab. I also encourage
students working inside the lab and other equipment were designed and
manufactured by students’ help.

Workplace health and safety: contributions to the creation or maintenance of safe work
environment and the wellbeing of colleagues.

 I have passed all courses related to HSE. I can provide risk assessment sheets for
all equipment inside the workspace and run HSE for all staff and students
working there.
 I very well maintain all equipment in the lab and am a good lab manager.

In addition, my PhD degree has been assessed by Engineers Australia and I am willing to be a
member of Engineers Australia. Also, my working Experiences (connections with industry) are
listed in my CV.