2024 Industry Icon Award

Oscar Barton, Jr., PhD, PE is a Professor and Dean of the Morgan State University Clarence M. Mitchell, Jr. School of Engineering. A native of Washington, D.C., he received his B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Tuskegee (Institute) University, his M.S. in Mechanical Engineering and Ph.D. in Applied Mechanics from Howard University in 1993.  Serving as its 3rd Dean, he joined Morgan from George Mason University after having established its Department of Mechanical Engineering in the Volgenau School of Engineering.  Prior to joining Mason, he began his academic career at the United States Naval Academy.

Dr. Barton’s research focuses on the development of approximate closed form solutions for linear self-adjoint systems, those that govern the responses of composite structures, and the analysis of dynamic systems. More recently, he investigated the dynamic response of flexible composite structures subject to periodic and random excitation. He has mentored numerous midshipmen through independent research projects and has directed two Trident Scholars, the Naval Academy’s flagship research program. He has published over 60 journal and conference articles on these topics.  While at the US Naval Academy and in its 163-year history, Dr. Barton was one of only three African-Americans to obtain the rank of tenured full professor and the first to achieve this milestone in the Division of Engineering and Weapons, Division I.  In 2010, he was the first African-American to lead the Mechanical Engineering Department as chair.

As the founding mechanical engineering department chair at Mason, Dr. Barton ushered growth of the department from 3 faculty and 12 students to 17 faculty and 385 undergraduate students and 6 doctoral students as of spring 2020. Under his leadership the undergraduate program received initial EAC-ABET accreditation retroactive to fall of 2015, reaccredited to fall 2024, established state-of- the-art teaching and research labs on the Mason’s Sci-Tech campus, and established an interim Ph.D. program.

Dr. Barton is an elected fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) and Registered Engineer licensed to practice engineering in the State of Maryland.  He chaired ASME’s Committee on Engineering Education, served as a member of ASME Public Affairs and Outreach Council, and served as a member-at-large on the Engineering Accreditation Commission’s Executive Committee of ABET, after having served numerous years as a program evaluator and commissioner.  He currently serves as a member on the Board of Trustees for Missouri University S & T, ASME Foundation, chairs ASME’s Nominating Committee, Army Education Advisory Committee and National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering. He is Vice-Chair for the Council of HBCU Engineering Deans and is a member of the Academic Advisory Council for ABET.