Adenrele Awotona, Ph.D.

Professor & Founding Director

Tel.: +1 617 287-7116

Email: adenrele.awotona@umb.edu

Adenrele Awotona is the founder and director of the Center. He is a former Dean of the College of Public and Community Service at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. Before then, he was at Southern University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where he served as the Dean of the School of Architecture.

He earned his Doctorate degree from the University of Cambridge, United Kingdom. He also earned a certificate from Harvard University’s Institute of Management and Leadership in Education; two certificates from Cornell University, one in Managing performance in higher education and another from the Administrative Management Institute; as well as two certificates from the National Association of College and University Business Officers (NACUBO), one in Financial Planning in an Institutional Setting and another from the Executive Leadership Institute. Furthermore, he is a graduate of the American Association of State Colleges and Universities’ Millennium Leadership Initiative Institute.

Professor Adenrele Awotona is a Certified Federal Grants Administrator. He was a peer reviewer for the Office of University Partnerships in the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development as well as a member of the National Council of University Research Administrators.

He has been a principal investigator (or co-PI/researcher) on major projects funded by various agencies. These include the Boston Foundation, the U.S. Department of Energy, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the U.S. Department of Education, the British Government Department for International Development, the United Nations Center for Human Settlements, the United Nations Development Program, and, the European Union. A stream of publications has, therefore, emanated from his work. Similarly, through research, consultancy and teaching, he has professional experience in many countries of Europe, Africa, Asia, the Middle East, South America, and the Caribbean. Furthermore, Adenrele Awotona has been an external reviewer/examiner of over 200 masters' theses and doctoral dissertations internationally.

In public and community service, Professor Awotona was a former member of the Design and Planning Selection Board of the City-Parish of East Baton Rouge. He was also an Educator/Coordinator of Seminars (on sustainable community development, etc.) at the annual American Institute of Architects National Conventions for several years. Similarly, he has been a member of the U.S. National Architectural Accrediting Board’s program review team internationally and a member of the Editorial Advisory Board of the Academic Leader, the national newsletter for academic deans. At the global level, he is a member of the Global Advisory Board of the Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies. He was a Director of Studies for British Council International Seminars (Reconstruction after disasters) in the United Kingdom, a technical consultant to the British Council Committee for International Cooperation in Higher Education, and, an Associate Adviser to the British Council on various aspects of the built environment.

Research interests

• Post-disaster reconstruction
• Post-war educational reconstruction
• Disasters and armed conflicts
• Disaster Mitigation, Preparedness, Response and Recovery planning
• Social and cultural dimensions of disasters
• The role of human dignity in rebuilding sustainable communities after disasters
• Disaster Diplomacy
• Sustainable community-based planning
• International development planning
• Housing Policy
• Housing design and cultural values
• Architectural design methodologies
• People-Environment relations

Selected publications

Adetula, Grace Oyebola and Adenrele Awotona. The role of demobilized girl soldiers in participatory community development after wars in Africa, A paper presented at the 4th Women in Africa and the African Diaspora (WAAD) International Conference on “Education, Gender & Sustainable Development in the Age of Globalization,” Abuja, Nigeria, August 3 to 8, 2009. 

Awotona, Adenrele (ed.). Rebuilding sustainable communities in Iraq: Policies, Programs and International Perspectives, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2008, xxiii+319pp; ISBN (10): 1-84718-927-X; ISBN (13): 9781847189271.

Awotona, Adenrele and Michael Donlan. “Reconstructing Iraq: Massive investment, Little sustainable results,” in Awotona, Adenrele (ed.). Rebuilding Sustainable Communities in Iraq: Policies, Programs and international perspectives, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2008, pp.3-36, (ISBN (10): 1-84718-927-X, ISBN (13): 9781847189271).

Awotona, Adenrele (ed.). Proceedings of the international conference on Rebuilding sustainable communities for children and their families after disasters, University of Massachusetts Boston, November 16-19, 2008, 261pp.

Awotona, Adenrele (ed.). Proceedings of the International Conference on ‘Rebuilding sustainable communities in Iraq: Policies, Programs and Projects’, University of Massachusetts Boston, July 23-26, 2007, 250pp.

Awotona, Adenrele (ed.). Housing provision and bottom-up approaches: Case studies from Africa, Asia and South America, Aldershot, Ashgate, 1999, xxx+332pp (ISBN 1 84014 303 7).

Ying Liu and Adenrele Awotona. “Chinese vernacular dwellings: A popular approach to housing supply”, in Awotona, Adenrele (ed.). Housing provision and bottom-up approaches: Case studies from Africa, Asia and South America, Aldershot, Ashgate, 1999, pp.223-312 (ISBN 1 84014 303 7).

Abubaker M. Shawesh and Adenrele Awotona. “The attitude of Libyan families to their traditional and contemporary houses”, in Awotona, Adenrele (ed.). Housing provision and bottom-up approaches: Case studies from Africa, Asia and South America, Aldershot, Ashgate, 1999, pp.117-144 (ISBN 1 84014 303 7).

Awotona, Adenrele and Necdet Teymur (eds.). Tradition, Location and Community: place-making and development, Aldershot, Avebury, 1997, xxii+315pp. (ISBN 1 85972 320 9).

Awotona, Adenrele (ed.). Reconstruction after disaster: issues and practices, Aldershot, Ashgate, 1997, xx+179pp. (ISBN 1 85972 551 1).

Awotona Adenrele and Michael Briggs. "The 'enablement' approach and settlement upgrading in South Africa", in Awotona, Adenrele and Necdet Teymur (ed.). Tradition, Location and Community: place-making and development, Aldershot, Avebury, 1997, pp.59-80 (ISBN 1 85972 320 9).

Mahdjoubi, Lamine and Awotona, Adenrele. "Planning and designing rural settlements: the Algerian experience", in Awotona, Adenrele and Necdet Teymur (ed.). Tradition, Location and Community: place-making and development, Aldershot, Avebury, 1997, pp.141-160 (ISBN 1 85972 320 9).

Awotona, Adenrele and Johnson, Mulbah. "Housing and Resettlement in Post-war Liberia", in Awotona, Adenrele (ed.). Reconstruction after disaster: issues and practices, Aldershot, Ashgate, 1997, pp.109-130 (ISBN 1 85972 551 1).

Awotona, Adenrele. “Residential segregation and the housing conditions of African and Caribbean communities in Britain” in Burayidi, Michael A (ed.), Multiculturalism in a cross-national perspective, University Press of America, Inc., 1997, pp.287-328 (ISBN 0-7618-0592-3, cloth edition; 0-7618-0593-1, paper edition).

More Publications

Contact Information

Professor Adenrele Awotona
University of Massachusetts Boston
100 Morrissey Boulevard
Boston, MA 02125
USA

Office Location: McCormack Hall, third floor, room 607
Telephone: +1 (617) 287-7116

Email address: adenrele.awotona@umb.edu