Rate My Professor Kemal Celik

Kemal Celik is an Associate Professor of Civil and Urban Engineering at New York University Abu Dhabi and holds a Global Network Associate Professor appointment at NYU Tandon School of Engineering. He received his PhD in Civil and Environmental Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley in 2015, with a major in Structural Engineering, Mechanics and Materials and minors in Geoengineering and Material Science and Engineering. He also holds MS and BS degrees in Civil Engineering from Istanbul University. Before joining NYU Abu Dhabi, Celik was a Postdoctoral Scholar at the University of California, Berkeley and the Singapore-Berkeley Building Efficiency and Sustainability in the Tropics program from 2016 to 2017. Previously, he served as Research and Development Engineer from 2014 to 2015 and Graduate Student Researcher and Instructor from 2010 to 2014 at UC Berkeley.

As director of the Advanced Materials and Building Efficiency Research Laboratory (AMBER Lab) at NYU Abu Dhabi, Celik's research centers on construction materials and building energy efficiency, including the development and characterization of sustainable and energy-efficient construction materials, low-carbon cements, alkali-activated cementitious materials, multi-functional building envelopes, and prediction and evaluation of daylight distribution through complex fenestration systems using hybrid simulations. His innovations include processes to produce sustainable cement and concrete from desalination brine byproducts, which have been featured in CNN International, the UAE Pavilion at Expo 2020, and the National Pavilion of UAE at the Venice Architecture Biennale 2021, where he received a Golden Lion award as an exhibitor. Celik has earned the ADEK Award for Research Excellence (AARE 2019), National Science Foundation Award, NYU Abu Dhabi Research Enhancement Fund Award, New York University Research Challenge Fund, University of California, Berkeley Outstanding Graduate Student Instructor Award, SCMT3 Outstanding Paper Award, University of California, Berkeley Conference Grant, Ministry of National Education of Turkey Scholarship, and Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey fellowship. Key publications include Peng et al., '3D shape reconstruction and generation of natural pozzolan particles' (Powder Technology, 2025); Peng et al., 'Development and characterization of a regional lunar soil simulant for emirates lunar missions' (International Journal of Mining Science and Technology, 2024); Wang et al., 'Enhancing carbonation and thermal insulation of reactive magnesium oxide cement (RMC)-based 3D printable pastes with cenospheres' (Cement and Concrete Composites, 2024); Singh and Celik, 'Influence of supercritical carbon dioxide (scCO2) curing on carbonation and strength development of brucite recovered from desalination reject brine' (Journal of CO2 Utilization, 2024); and Hay and Celik, 'Performance enhancement and characterization of limestone calcined clay cement (LC3) produced with low-reactivity kaolinitic clay' (Construction and Building Materials, 2023).