CEE’s Nicholas Tooker Lands Prestigious Fulbright Fellowship to Teach Coursework on Water and Wastewater Treatment in Kenya

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Senior Lecturer Nicholas Tooker of the UMass Amherst Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) Department has received a much-sought-after fellowship from the prestigious Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program to design and teach courses in water and wastewater treatment for five months, beginning in January of 2026, at the University of Nairobi (UoN) in Kenya. 

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The Fulbright Program, the U.S. government’s flagship program of international educational and cultural exchange, says that it “offers passionate and accomplished students and scholars in more than 160 countries the opportunity to study, teach, conduct research, exchange ideas, and contribute to mutual understanding. These talented Fulbrighters from all backgrounds inspire, innovate, and contribute to finding solutions to challenges facing our communities and our world.”

Tooker plans to teach courses in water- and wastewater-treatment design at the undergraduate and graduate levels in the Departments of Environmental & Biosystems Engineering and Civil & Construction Engineering at the UoN during the Spring of 2026. These courses are fundamental learning experiences for students who are studying civil, environmental, and biosystems engineering.

Tooker adds that “My overall objective with this Fulbright Fellowship is not a one-time teaching experience at the UoN. Rather, it is to continue to strengthen the relationship between our universities and enhance future opportunities for all of our students.”

According to Tooker, the background of his Fulbright project is that “For the past several years, I have been working with the Engineers Without Borders (EWB) student group at UMass Amherst to collaborate with communities in Kenya on providing a sustainable source of clean water.” In that capacity, Tooker has made several trips to Kenya with UMass EWB students that included cooperation with the UoN.

According to Tooker, “For this [Fulbright] project, my objective is to expand connections between the engineering programs at the UoN and UMass Amherst.” 

In that context, as one key outcome from this project, Tooker will develop a new winter-session course for students at both UMass and the UoN focused on engineering design. Tooker says this course will emphasize “designing for location,” in which students will consider both technical and non-technical aspects of engineering problem-solving, including cultural, regulatory, and socio-economic factors.

Tooker explains that there is a long-standing relationship between programs at UMass Amherst and the UoN. Several undergraduates from the UoN have gone on to graduate studies at UMass, and the UMass EWB group has been collaborating with the UoN for many years. Additionally, UMass faculty and students in the CEE and Electrical and Computer Engineering Departments, as well as the Manning College of Information and Computer Sciences, have conducted research projects in partnership with the UoN. 

Tooker recently participated in the Lilly Fellowship program at UMass Amherst, where his cohort worked with experts in pedagogy from the UMass Center for Teaching and Learning to design or redesign coursework. He also has seven years of experience as a consulting design engineer and licensed professional engineer for Tighe & Bond in Massachusetts. He plans to use all this background to perfect his coursework at the UoN and bring those lessons back to his students at UMass. 

In 2024, The New England Water Environment Association presented Tooker with its prestigious Clair N. Sawyer Award in honor of his “outstanding service” in various aspects of the wastewater industry and in recognition of  “the best of the best” water-quality professionals from within the 2,000-member organization. (August 2025)