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Engineering Instructor

Damien O’Kane joined Delaware Tech in 2024 as an engineering instructor after teaching around the world for 15 years. He was born and raised in Ireland, where he spent the first nine years of his career in the engineering sector.

He decided to make a change after helping his brother prepare for a new job by re-teaching him high school math. O’Kane fell in love with teaching and left his engineering career to teach full-time in Ireland for two years before a friend invited him to Dubai, where he taught engineering for nearly a decade.

While teaching in Dubai, he met his wife, and the couple began their family abroad. They later relocated to Delaware to be closer to his wife’s family. He was drawn to Delaware Tech because he wanted to work at a college connected to the engineering sector.

“They’ve got ties to the industry — industries are coming in and helping develop the curriculum,” said O’Kane, who teaches at the Terry Campus in Dover. “Everything is matching the needs of the industry.”

His goal for the engineering department is that one day it will match the size of the College’s nursing and education departments.

“We want to grow what we’re offering based on what the students are telling us,” he said.

O’Kane’s engineering students enter the College planning to get a job or further their education. Seeing students develop their own skills and apply them to accomplish their goals is what he calls success.

“Seeing that progression at the end of every semester is … the best part of the job, to be honest,” he said.

A lifelong learner who holds three master’s degrees, O’Kane challenges himself outside of teaching through chess (he’s ranked in the top 50 percent of players on Chess.com) and playing guitar. He also does research on artificial intelligence (AI) and publishes articles on the subject, which he hopes might eventually lead him to a doctoral degree in AI ethics.

“I have to always be doing something,” he said. “I just like the feeling of it. I’m addicted to just improving myself mentally.”