Dr. Nelson C. Baker, dean of Professional Education and associate professor in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, leads the multifaceted Georgia Tech Professional Education. The division is composed of the Global Learning Center, Georgia Tech-Savannah, the Language Institute, and an extensive program of professional education courses in science, technology, engineering, and math that include online professional master’s degrees, as well as an array of distance learning courses, both for credit and not for credit.
Particularly, Baker seeks to create and assess ways in which technology impacts the learning of engineering students. His award-winning work has generated projects such as multilingual web-based intelligent simulations for problem solving; intelligent tutors; student models; an online faculty assistant tool for creating course objectives; and a variety of technology-based assessments and virtual reality interfaces for education.
In addition to his role as dean, Baker serves as the U.S. principal investigator for a FIPSE Atlantis programme grant (P116J090074), an international activity exploring quality management and benchmarking of continuing engineering education programs. He also serves as a co-principal investigator on a five-year NASA project, Electronic Professional Development Network (ePDN), which develops and delivers STEM content to high school teachers.
In February 2012, Baker was appointed by Chancellor Huckaby to serve on the University System of Georgia's (USG) Distance Education Task Force to create a framework to better coordinate and guide the future use of distance education for the 35 colleges and universities within the USG system. He currently serves as the president of the International Association for Continuing Engineering Education and is past chair of the Georgia Board of Regents Administrative Committee on Public Service and Continuing Education. Additionally, Baker is a member of the University Professional and Continuing Education Association's board and is an active member of ASEE and ASCE.