A 30-year champion of active, student-centered engineering education earns system-wide recognition
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It was recently announced that Professor Sukalyan Sengupta (Civil and Environmental Engineering) has been named as UMass Dartmouth’s recipient of the prestigious 2026 Manning Prize for Excellence in Teaching.
Professor Sengupta exemplifies the very best of UMass Dartmouth’s teaching mission through his application of evidence-based pedagogy with practical assessment to deepen engineering learning. Over his 30+ year career at UMass Dartmouth, Sengupta has consistently designed active collaboration learning practices that support diverse learning and enable students to construct knowledge through meaningful group work. From an NSF-funded project to develop a concept inventory for the fundamentals of engineering education to flipping his classes to allow for collaborative problem solving, Sengupta’s work has greatly contributed to institutional priorities for student success.
Beyond the classroom, Professor Sengupta has been active in promoting effective pedagogy and focusing on continuous improvement in engineering education. He is an American Society of Civil Engineers Excellence in Civil Engineering Education Fellow. He has also been deeply involved in curriculum reform, starting with his service on a task force in 1988 for the IMPULSE (Integrated Math, Physics, Undergraduate Laboratory in Science in Engineering) curriculum, which aligned week-by-week scheduling for Math and Physics courses to promote student success. He was also a member of the committee that developed the first-year engineering course (EGR 111) and has taught this course for many years.
“For over three decades, Dr. Sengupta has been a leader at our institution and in the civil engineering academic community, broadly known for the use of cutting-edge pedagogy in the classroom, care and concern for students, and fostering student career success,” said Robert Griffin, Dean of the College of Engineering.
The Manning Prize was established thanks to the generosity of UMass Foundation Board Chair Robert J. Manning, ’84, ’11 (H), and his wife, Donna Manning. Each year, all five of the UMass campuses select a Manning Prize recipient, and this year’s cohort of winners marks the 50th educator honored to date. More about the Manning Prize and the 2026 recipients can be found here.