AU’s Dr. Mona Salameh Wins Best Paper Award at Key Global Engineering Conference

Her research on courtyard design and student satisfaction in schools was awarded for its innovative approach and important findings

Proving once again that Ajman University faculty are some of the brightest individuals in the academic world, AU Lecturer Dr. Mona Salameh has won the Best Paper award at the 2020 Congress on Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering­­ (CSEE). Dr. Mona, Lecturer at Ajman University’s College of Architecture, Art & Design was also the Conference Chair for seven presentations at the conference.

Dr. Mona’s paper titled, Courtyard Design in Schools and its Influence on Students’ Satisfaction provided an interesting and rare perspective on how a good courtyard design can lead to higher student satisfaction and better academic outcomes. Her findings were based on a rigorous study of a large group of students across two private schools in the UAE.

Perhaps one of the key reasons why Dr. Mona won the award was her refreshingly different approach from other researchers on this topic. While papers from other researchers focused on the environmental impact of courtyards on school buildings, Dr. Mona’s concentrated on the psychological impact of courtyard design on the building occupants. With such a different way of approaching the topic, developing and testing the hypothesis was no mean task, but Dr. Mona achieved it with the help of advanced tools such as SPSS and regression analysis.

Her research will help educational institutions better understand how building and courtyard design can enhance student satisfaction.

“This is a wonderful achievement by Dr. Mona Salameh which shows that at AU we dare to think differently, innovate and bring out less known facets of knowledge that ultimately benefit the society,” said Riad Saraiji, Dean, College of Architecture, Art & Design, Ajman University.