Ronald E. Barr

Ronald E. Barr is Professor of Mechanical Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin, where he has taught since 1978. He previously taught at Texas A&M University. He received both his BS (Electrical Engineering) and Ph.D. (Biomedical Engineering) degrees from Marquette University in 1969 and 1975, respectively. He spent two years in military service at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Barr has been a member of the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) since 1979, and has served the Society in various capacities at the Section, Division, Zone and National levels. He has been Chair of the Engineering Design Graphics Division and Chair of the Gulf-Southwest Section. Barr has served two terms on the ASEE Board of Directors: as Chair of Zone III from 1997-1999, and then as Vice-President of Member Affairs from 2000-2002. During his second term on the Board, he chaired the ASEE Long Range Planning committee. Barr is an ASEE Campus Representative and is faculty advisor for the UT ASEE Student Chapter. Dedicated to teaching, Barr has received numerous grants from NSF for curriculum innovation in engineering education, and frequently publishes articles in refereed journals and conference proceedings on educational topics. He currently is a participating faculty in the NSF-sponsored VaNTH Engineering Research Center for Bioengineering Educational Technologies. During his career, Barr has won 5 first-place and 3 second-place best paper awards at meetings where he has presented. Barr received the A.T.&T. Foundation Award (1990) for excellence in engineering teaching, the ASEE Chester F. Carlson Award (1993) for innovation in engineering education, and the Orthogonal Medal (2007) for distinguished service in graphic science. In 1999, he became the 50th annual recipient of the Distinguished Service Award from the Engineering Design Graphics Division. Barr was elected to the grade of ASEE Fellow in 2000. In Spring 2004, Barr was voted President-Elect of ASEE and served as ASEE President in 2005-2006. Barr is on the editorial boards of the Engineering Design Graphics Journal and the international Journal for Geometry and Graphics. Barr served five years as Graduate Advisor for Mechanical Engineering and six years as Graduate Advisor for Biomedical Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin. Barr's interests are in Biosignal Analysis, Biomechanics of Human Movement, Computer Graphics Modeling, and Engineering Education Research. He has supervised to completion 5 Doctoral dissertations and 53 Masters theses. In addition to ASEE, he is also a member of ASME, IEEE, Tau Beta Pi, Sigma Xi, Alpha Sigma Nu, and Triangle Fraternity. Barr is a registered Professional Engineer (PE) in the state of Texas.

Most Significant Journal Articles

1. Rask, J. M., Gonzalez, R.V., and Barr, R. E., "Genetically-Designed Neural Networks for Error Reduction in an Optimized Biomechanical Model of the Human Elbow Joint Complex", Computer Methods in Biomechanics and Biomedical Engineering, Vol. 7, (2004), 1, pp. 43-50
2. Barr, R., Krueger, T., and Aanstoos, T., "Assessing Student Outcomes in an Engineering Design Graphics Course", Engineering Design Graphics Journal, Vol. 68, (2004), (1), pp. 22-36
3. Barr, R., "Current Status of Engineering Education in America", Journal of the Japanese Society for Engineering Education, Vol. 54, (2006), 2, pp. 36-43
4. Krueger, T. and Barr, R.:, "The Concurrent Engineering Design Paradigm is Now Fully Functional for Graphics Education", Engineering Design Graphics Journal, Vol. 71, (2007), 1, pp. 22-28
5. Barr, R., Pandy, M., Petrosino, A., Roselli, R., Brophy, S., and Freeman, R, "Challenge-Based Instruction: The VaNTH Biomechanics Modules", Advances in Engineering Education, Vol. 1, (2007), 1, pp. 1-30