Morgan School of Engineering Dean Named to the ASME Foundation Board of Directors

Oscar Barton, Jr., Ph.D., PE, dean of Morgan State University’s Clarence M. Mitchell, Jr., School of Engineering (SOE), was appointed to the board of directors of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) Foundation. The charitable arm of ASME, the ASME Foundation, supports a wide range of initiatives in the three areas of engineering education, career engagement, and global development. 

Effective August 30, Dr. Barton is one of two new members replacing established ASME stalwarts on the six-member board. He is also an ASME Fellow and a national academic engineering program assessment pioneer.

“We are so fortunate to have the insight and guidance of such distinguished engineering leaders informing our philanthropic work,” said Tom Costabile, ASME's executive director/CEO and member of the ASME Foundation board. “Their commitment to advancing equity in engineering will be critical to our goal of empowering a more diverse next generation of engineers to build a more sustainable world.”

The selection of Barton underscores Morgan’s designation as Maryland’s Preeminent Public Urban Research University and its ambition to achieve R1 highest research classification of the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education. He is renowned for his work on developing approximate closed-form solutions for linear self-adjoint systems, those that govern the responses of composite structures, and the analysis of dynamic systems. After a five-month, extremely competitive national search, he was appointed dean of Morgan’s SOE in June 2020.

Kudos to Dean Burton for being elected to the board of directors of the ASME Foundation.