MOH’D BILBEISI IN THE SPOTLIGHT:

Did you know that Moh was the first professor in the School of Architecture to be promoted to Regents Professor at OSU, the only professor in our School to be named an Eminent Professor at OSU, and the only person to win First Place in both the Ken Roberts Memorial Delineation Competition and the American Society of Architectural Illustrators International Competition? He’s also been noted as a nationwide DesignIntelligence ‘Most Admired Educator’ three times! He’s conducted graphic workshops at over a dozen universities in the US and worldwide: at the Middle East Technical University, Ningbo Pan Tianshou Academy, American University of Sharjah, OU, KSU, KU, Judson College, California Baptist University, UT Arlington, Montana State, Western Kentucky, and Woodbury. He’s an educator armed with a watercolor set, ready to travel!

Moh loves working with students from all corners of the globe and all walks of life. He also relishes teaching our OSU students while on study abroad. At this very moment he is working with our group of 28 students in Italy, helping them learn to draw what they see, and understand what that drawing might tell them about design.

In addition to teaching, Moh’s scholarly areas of study are the theories of graphic representation of design over time, and the history and development of Islamic architecture. He conceived and developed an elective course for each of these topics at our school, and each year adds scholarly material to the discourse. To that end, he has co-authored or contributed content/illustrations to more than 40 books and journal articles.

Moh is perhaps most known for his drawing talents - he has been continuously developing his skills since he was a teen! Over the past 30 years, his work has been included in more than 25 art exhibitions. Moh has built a following of collectors of his art, and currently has more than 215,000 followers of his social media platforms - he has managed to find a way to use Facebook and Instagram as spaces for instruction and inspiration. (FB: “Mohd Bilbeisi”, IG: “mbilbeisi”, website: mohdbilbeisiart.com)

When meeting Moh, in his cargo shorts and with ink stained fingers, the students don’t have any knowledge of these accomplishments. And that’s fine with him. He is content to humbly win them over with a smile, a funny anecdote, and a quick stroke of his fountain pen!