How Dhaval Gajjar Created the Roofing Certificate Program at Clemson

By Cass Jacoby, RCS Reporter. 

Learn the story behind how the Roofing Alliance and Dhaval created a first-of-its-kind roofing curriculum for Clemson University. 

In a recent Roofing Road Trips podcast, Heidi J. Ellsworth sat down with Dhaval Gajjar, assistant professor at Clemson University. With several years, projects and degrees studying roofing, Dhaval shared his passion for roofing with his students at Clemson. The two talk about university-level roofing classes for construction management schools developed by Dhaval with funding from the Roofing Alliance. 

Dhaval graduated from Arizona State University, where he completed his Bachelor's, Master's and Doctorate degrees. His graduate school focus was on construction management. “For my master's thesis, evaluating performance of roofing systems, I did a lot of roof inspections...all over the country," says Dhaval. “For my Ph.D., we moved more onto the contracting side, the roofing contracting side, to look at how can we better predict performance for roofing contractors based on the expertise and the experience they've had in the past.” 

Dhaval then worked in the field for a while, getting hands-on experience before going to Clemson. “When I came to Clemson, one of the things that I wanted to focus on was bringing more exposure to our industry because it's such a critical industry in such an important sector within construction,” says Dhaval. “Surprisingly, when I came to teach as a professor at a four-year university within construction management, we only talked about roofing for maybe an hour in the whole curriculum, only 50 minutes.” 

This led Dhaval to begin developing a roofing curriculum for Clemson. “We found a gap; we found a niche, so Clemson and the Roofing Alliance partnered together on this first-ever roofing course that will be implemented,” says Dhaval. The entire program is all about bringing more professionals into the industry. 

Dhaval explained that the class is a way to introduce roofing curriculum to students, as well as educate them on the industry and different career options available. “One of the most common themes that kept emerging was, students just wanted to know more about the industry,” said Dhaval. “At this time next year, we'll have a nine credit, three course, Roofing Certificate Program at Clemson.” 

The goal is to implement the Roofing Certificate program into other universities and schools across the country. “The Roofing Alliance and Clemson have really partnered not only on the education side, but really to understand how to attract and retain some of the professionals in our industry today,” said Dhaval. “It’s very exciting to see what we have done and where we are headed.” 

Listen to the rest of the podcast and learn more about Dhaval and his work with the Roofing Alliance and Clemson University, developing a roofing curriculum and building the next generation of roofing professionals.