Newswise — Atlanta (May 23, 2012) -- The Georgia Tech-Savannah campus is transitioning into a hub for professional education, as recommended by the Institute’s task force report last summer. Professional Education Dean Nelson Baker will lead the new direction of the Georgia Tech-Savannah campus. Baker is a nationally recognized leader in award-winning educational technologies designed for and applied to engineering and technical environments. As the dean of Professional Education, Baker is responsible for the oversight of all professional education programs at Georgia Tech and for the distance delivered master’s degree programs. “Nelson will provide the leadership and direction needed to guide Georgia Tech-Savannah through this transformation,” said Georgia Tech Provost Rafael Bras. “He has a strong vision for professional education at Georgia Tech, and Savannah can play a key role through its new mission focused on meeting the needs of the community and industry in the coastal Georgia area.”
Georgia Tech-Savannah will begin to offer professional education classes this fall in the areas of OSHA, LEAN Healthcare, supply chain logistics, and project management, with additional programs to be scheduled in the future. The Savannah campus will also continue to deepen engagement with the community via partnerships with industry, other educational institutions, K-12 outreach, and the military. “I’m excited that Georgia Tech is investing in the Savannah campus through our professional education program,” said Baker. “Over the last year, I have learned that the Savannah business community is very dedicated to working with Georgia Tech-Savannah. Our goal is to create new programs that will have a vital and lasting impact in Savannah and the coastal region.”
In February 2012, Baker was appointed by Chancellor Huckaby to sit 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 of Continuing Engineering Education, and is past-chair of the Georgia Board of Regents Administrative Committee on Public Service and Continuing Education. Baker is a member of the Learning, Instruction and Technology Commission for the University Continuing Education Association, and is an active member of ASEE and ASCE.
Within the educational technology domain, Baker has helped create and assess technology used by students in the pursuit of evaluating 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. Baker’s research interests include intelligent learning environments for engineering, applications of artificial intelligence and other computer-based techniques to solve engineering problems, as well as robotic applications in civil engineering. 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; and also 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. Baker has a master’s and Ph.D. in Civil Engineering from Carnegie Mellon and bachelor’s degree from Georgia Tech. For further information on Georgia Tech Professional Education, please visit: http://www.gtpe.gatech.edu Additional information on the Georgia Tech-Savannah campus: http://savannah.gatech.edu
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About Georgia Tech Professional EducationGeorgia Tech Professional Education is an academic division of the Georgia Institute of Technology, which consistently ranks as one of the nation’s top 10 public universities by U.S. News & World Report. Professional Education offers professional master's programs, short courses, and certificate programs to meet the needs of working professionals and industry partners. Programs are available worldwide through a variety of face-to-face, blended learning, online and/or distance learning modalities. In addition to professional course offerings, the division administers K-12 outreach and English proficiency programs, and manages a meeting and event facility. Professional Education serves and educates more than 3,100 companies and over 13,000 individuals on an annual basis, and is located at the Georgia Tech Global Learning Center in Atlanta and at the Georgia Tech-Savannah campus.
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