CEE Faculty Profile

Nelson C. Baker

Vice Provost and Associate Professor

Affinity Group: Structural Engineering, Mechanics and Materials

Office: SEB 322
Phone: 404/894-9658
Email: nelson.baker@dlpe.gatech.edu
Web: http://people.ce.gatech.edu/~nbaker

Dr. Nelson Baker is the Vice Provost for Distance Learning and Professional Education at Georgia Tech and an Associate Professor in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering. He is a nationally recognized leader in educational technologies designed for and applied to engineering and technical environments having won numerous awards in this area. As the Associate Vice Provost, Dr. Baker is responsible for the oversight of all the professional education programs offered by Georgia Tech and for the distance delivered masters' degree programs. Within the educational technology domain, Dr. Baker pursues the creation and assessment of technology used by engineering students in the pursuit of learning the impacts on knowledge retention and transfer. These activities have included multi-lingual web-based intelligent simulations for problem solving, intelligent tutors, student models, virtual reality interfaces for education, and medical assistants for physicians.

Research Interests

  • Intelligent learning environments for engineering
  • Applications of artificial intelligence and other computer-based techniques to solve engineering problems
  • Robotic applications to civil engineering

Education

  • Ph.D., Civil Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University, 1989.
  • M.S., Civil Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University, 1985.
  • B.C.E., Civil Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, 1980.

Honors

  1. National Science Foundation National Young Investigator, 1992-1998
  2. Outstanding Innovative Use of Education Technology Award, Georgia Institute of Technology, 1997
  3. Nominated for the American Society of Engineering Education George Westinghouse National Award, 1997.
  4. Recipient of ENR Educator for Construction's Next Generation, 1996
  5. Department of the Navy, Instructional Recognition Letter, January 1996.
  6. W. Roane Beard Georgia Institute of Technology Outstanding Teacher Award, 1994
  7. W.M. Keck Foundation Award for Engineering Teaching Excellence, 1994
  8. Outstanding Faculty Member Award 1993 - 1994 as determined by the Georgia Tech Student Chapter of the American Society of Civil Engineers
  9. Lilly Teaching Fellow, 1991 - 1992
  10. ASCE Journal of Computing Best Paper, 1990
  11. Outstanding Faculty Member Award 1989 - 1990 as determined by the Georgia Tech Student Chapter of the American Society of Civil Engineers

Articles

  1. S. St. Clair and N. Baker, "<em>Faculty Use and Impressions of Courseware Management Tools: A National Survey</em>", Journal of Engineering Education, ASEE, pgs 113-121, April, 2003.
  2. N. Baker and P. Chinowsky, "Integration of Distance Learning in Civil Engineering Education", submitted to The 8th International Conference on Computing in Civil and Building Engineering, August 2000.
  3. S. St. Clair and N. Baker, "On-line Assistant for Writing Course Objectives", Paper #1186, Frontiers in Education Conference, ASEE, October, 2000.
  4. T. Sulbaran and N.. Baker, "Enhancing Engineering Education through Distributed Virtual Reality", Paper #1245, Frontiers in Education Conference, ASEE, October, 2000.

Books

  1. N.C. Baker, "<em>Effective Teaching with Technology</em>", SUCCEED publication, 2000 (revised in 2002).
  2. N.C. Baker and B.J. Goodno (Eds.), "<em>World-wide Progress in Structural Engineering</em>", Volumes 1 and 2, XII Structures Congress, American Society of Civil Engineers, 1620 pages, 1994.

Presentations

  1. Technology Futures, Key note speaker at Tegrity User Conference, June 2007.
  2. Using and Supporting Tegrity Live, Presentation at Tegrity User Conference, June 2007.
  3. Effective Teaching with Technology, Institute of Chemical Engineers Annual Conference, 2 hour workshop, Indianapolis, IN, November 3, 2003. (invited)
  4. Effective Teaching with Technology, American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference, 2 hour workshop, Nashville, TN, June 22, 2003. (invited)
  5. Effective Teaching with Technology, Sharing the Futures III Conference, 2 hour workshop, University of Florida, March 3-5, 2002. (invited)
  6. Effective Teaching with Technology, SUCCEED Annual Conference, 2 hour workshop, Clemson University, March 18-20, 2001. (invited)
  7. Technology in the Classroom - What do Faculty/Students Want and Need? November 15, 2001, Georgia Tech, SUCCEED/CETL 2 hour workshop
  8. Mentoring New Faculty and Graduate Students, Georgia Tech, Jan 20, 2000
  9. June 20, 21, and 23, 2000: Effective Teaching with Technology, one 1.5 hour workshop and two 3.5 hour workshops to the participants of SECME.