Mustapha A. Bello, Ph.D., CEng, F.ASCE, principal project manager and consultant of Penntech Consulting Services, has been named a fellow by the ASCE Board of Direction.
Over more than two decades in the engineering profession, Bello has been involved in more than 20 projects in the United States and Nigeria. With regard to the latter, he has had involvement on major infrastructure projects of consequence to the development of the country’s capital, the planned city of Abuja, which has been among the fastest-growing cities in Africa, and globally replacing Lagos as capital in 1991. He was part of the team that completed the Wupa Wastewater Treatment Plant, which remains Abuja’s major treatment facility. Bello subsequently played a site management role in the terminal segment of the Gurara Water Transfer Project, constructed to convey water from the Gurara Dam to the Lower Usuma Dam through a subterranean 10-foot or 3-meter-diameter steel pipe over a distance of 47 miles, or 75 kilometers. This project was necessitated due to the rapidly increasing water needs of Abuja that was depleting the Lower Usuma Dam which directly serves the city, and it further included an adjacent service road with bridges, as well as hydroelectric and agricultural irrigation components.
Bello has more recently served as the technical director of the Gwagwa District Comprehensive Infrastructure Development project, which is a public-private partnership (PPP) to deliver urban infrastructure including road network, water supply system, stormwater and sewer drainage network, power supply network, and telecommunications to the 2,078-acre or 841-hectare Gwagwa District in Abuja. Inclusive of the aforementioned, he has played varying roles in building projects that include a five-star hotel, commercial and recreational complexes, multifamily residential complexes and residential estates, and single-family residences.
Bello completed the entirety of his tertiary education in Pennsylvania. He earned two bachelor’s degrees at Drexel University that include a B.Sc. in civil engineering and a B.Sc. in architectural engineering. He also earned an MBA from the University of Pittsburgh, as well as a M.Sc. in Architecture and a doctoral degree in architecture-engineering-construction management from Carnegie Mellon University. As well he earned a certificate in project management at Villanova University.
In academia, Bello has served as a graduate teaching assistant at the University of Pittsburgh and as a research assistant at Carnegie Mellon University. More recently, he served as a lecturer for five years at the Department of Civil Engineering at Baze University in Abuja, where he instructed third-year and fourth-year undergraduate students.
Bello is multidisciplinary. He is registered as a professional civil engineer in Nigeria and is a Member of the Nigerian Society of Engineers. He is also an associate member of the Nigerian Institute of Architects and an associate of the American Institute of Architects. Bello is a LEED Accredited Professional and a member of the Nigerian Institute of Chartered Arbitrators. And since 2009, he has been a project management professional (PMP).
