Vice-Chancellor’s Inaugural Lecture: Professor Abimbola Windapo

Dear colleagues and students

Every year the Vice-Chancellor’s Inaugural Lecture series provides an opportunity for academics to share their work and research in an accessible way with the wider university community and the general public.

I am excited to share that Professor Abimbola Olukemi Windapo will present her virtual inaugural lecture next week, titled “Building resilient foundations to prevent project failure: is there a formula for success?”. Many projects fail to meet the performance standards – resulting in fatalities, accidents, delays, building failure, project abandonment, and cost overruns. Meanwhile, the ability of the construction process to withstand plausible difficulties and challenges causing these failures is poorly understood.

The lecture by Professor Windapo will highlight strategies that stakeholders can use to prevent project failure.

With over 35 years in the industry, Professor Windapo has had an illustrious career and in 2021 she became the first female professor of construction management in South Africa. She started her career in the industry as a planning and studies engineer at Bouygues Nigeria Limited, an international building and civil engineering construction company, and joined academia years later at the Lagos State Polytechnic. From there she joined the University of Lagos where her leadership skills were soon recognised and she was appointed as deputy dean.

She eventually joined the University of Cape Town’s (UCT) Department of Construction Economics and Management in 2009 and is currently the deputy dean of postgraduate studies in the Faculty of Engineering & the Built Environment. Her vast career has seen her publish more than 229 peer-reviewed articles in journals, conference proceedings, books and book chapters.

Professor Windapo is the editor of the Journal of Construction Business and Management; a Distinguished Associate of the Royal Academy of Engineering; and recipient of several awards, including the prestigious 2019/2022 NSTF-South32 Engineering Research Capacity Development ‘Science Oscars’ Award.

Please join us online for this important lecture on a subject that affects us all.

When: Wednesday, 18 May 2022
Time: 18:00 SAST
Platform: Microsoft Teams

Please register online to attend the lecture.

Sincerely

Professor Mamokgethi Phakeng
Vice-Chancellor

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