Assistant Teaching Professor

Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) invites applications for a full-time Assistant Teaching Professor in intelligent construction and infrastructure systems. This role focuses on sensing, automation, and computational technologies reshaping civil infrastructure throughout its lifecycle, including robotics, uncrewed aerial systems, reality capture, instrumented structures, digital twins, and data-driven asset management.

About the Role

The successful candidate will prepare students to work with emerging technologies addressing labor shortages, aging infrastructure, and decarbonization pressures. This is a career-track teaching appointment with a clear path for promotion to Associate Teaching Professor and Teaching Professor. Teaching faculty at WPI are full voting members of the faculty and contribute to curricular leadership.

Responsibilities

• Teach undergraduate and graduate courses in areas such as construction automation and robotics; UAS and reality capture; sensing, instrumentation, and structural health monitoring; digital twins and BIM-integrated workflows; applied machine learning and computer vision for the built environment; and data-driven infrastructure asset management.
• Develop new courses and laboratory modules providing hands-on experience with robotic platforms, drones, sensing hardware, field data collection, and modern computational tools.
• Advise and mentor students in WPI’s project-based curriculum, including Major Qualifying Projects (MQP), Interactive Qualifying Projects (IQP), and graduate capstone work.
• Contribute to the design and stewardship of laboratory, maker, and field-testing facilities supporting instrumented and automated construction and infrastructure work.
• Build and maintain relationships with contractors, owners, infrastructure agencies, and technology firms to ensure instruction reflects current and emerging practice.
• Participate in departmental service, student recruiting and retention, curriculum assessment and ABET accreditation activities, and outreach.

Requirements

• An earned doctorate by the appointment start date in civil, architectural, construction, mechanical, or robotics engineering; computer science; or a closely related field.
• Demonstrated technical depth in at least two of the following, with the ability to teach in both: construction robotics and automation; UAS/drone operations and reality capture; sensing, instrumentation, and structural health monitoring; digital twins and BIM-integrated workflows; applied machine learning or computer vision for the built environment; data-driven infrastructure asset management and condition assessment.
• Clear anchoring in civil, architectural, or construction engineering practice, connecting computational and robotic methods to real construction operations, structural behavior, or infrastructure management.
• Evidence of, or clear potential for, excellence in undergraduate and graduate teaching.
• Commitment to hands-on, project-based, and experiential instruction.

Preferred Qualifications

• Prior university-level teaching experience, including course and laboratory development.
• Professional experience in the construction industry, with an infrastructure owner or agency, or in a construction technology firm.
• Experience deploying robotic, sensing, or autonomous systems in field conditions.
• Working fluency with relevant tooling: Python and modern ML frameworks, ROS, photogrammetry and LiDAR processing, sensor networks and data acquisition, BIM and computational design platforms, or construction and asset management software.
• Experience building industry partnerships, sponsored student projects, or continuing education and workforce development programs.
• A record of mentoring students from a range of backgrounds and preparing them to work on diverse teams.

About the Department

WPI is a global leader in project-based learning, with an undergraduate curriculum requiring substantial team-based projects addressing real problems for stakeholders, often at one of WPI’s project centers worldwide. Courses are delivered in an intensive seven-week term structure. The Department of Civil, Environmental, and Architectural Engineering (CEAE) offers ABET-accredited undergraduate programs and graduate degrees in civil engineering, construction project management, environmental engineering, and architectural engineering. The department is investing in technologies defining the next generation of infrastructure practice, with this position central to that direction. The successful candidate will collaborate across WPI in robotics engineering, data science, electrical and computer engineering, and computer science.

Worcester, Massachusetts is New England’s second-largest city, with a growing innovation economy, a substantial construction and real estate development sector, and easy access to Boston, Providence, and Hartford.

Pay

Salary: $80,000 - $85,000 per year, based on related experience, expertise, and internal equity.

Benefits

• Robust retirement match
• Wellness perks
• Tuition assistance