Dr. Yakut Gazi worked at higher education institutions in the U.S.A., Turkey, Qatar, and Spain as an instructional designer, media specialist, IT consultant, faculty member, and technology leader since 1993. She is currently the Associate Dean for Learning Systems at Georgia Tech Professional Education, overseeing learning design and development, technology infrastructure, compliance, and assessment for credit and non-credit online courses. Prior to joining Georgia Tech Professional Education, she was the assistant vice chancellor for engineering remote education at Texas A&M University. Dr. Gazi also led the distributed learning and classroom technology operations at Texas A&M University-Central Texas. In her faculty role, she has taught courses in educational technology, foundations of distance learning, psychology of learning, theories of learning, and predictive analytics in higher education. She is on the editorial review teams of the ASEE Computers in Education, Journal of Social Media in Society, Educational Technology, Research, and Development (ETR&D), and the MERLOT Journal of Online Learning and Teaching. She is a board member of the International Association of Engineering Continuing Education (IACEE) and a member of the Quality Matters Academic Advisory Council. She is the recipient of the American Society of Engineering Education (ASEE) Continuing and Professional Development Division’s 2021 Certificate of Merit. She frequently presents at regional, national, and international conferences and is the author or co-author of book chapters, journal articles, and proceedings. Dr. Gazi has a Ph.D. in Educational Psychology from Texas A&M University, and an M.A. in Educational Sciences and a B.S. in Teaching Chemistry, both from Bogazici University. A native of Istanbul, Turkey, Dr. Gazi is married, with a daughter.
Dr. Nelson C. Baker is the dean of Professional Education at the Georgia Institute of Technology and professor in the university’s School of Civil and Environmental Engineering. As dean, Dr. Baker leads a multifaceted operation including the Global Learning Center, Georgia Tech-Savannah, the Language Institute, and Georgia Tech’s extensive professional education programs in STEM- and business-related subjects. Dr. Baker also oversees educational outreach programs and serves as the interface between Georgia Tech’s professional education activities and the industries, corporations, government agencies and professional societies that benefit from them. Under Dr. Baker’s leadership, Georgia Tech Professional Education has steadily expanded, serving more than 129,000 learners worldwide and 2,600 organizations in 2020. Dr. Baker’s award-winning work on the impact of technology on engineering students’ learning has generated projects such as multilingual web-based intelligent simulations for problem solving, among others. Leading Dr. Baker’s list of honors is the W.M. Keck Foundation Award for Engineering Teaching Excellence. He has been named an ENR Educator for Construction’s Next Generation as well as an NSF National Young Investigator. He is also the recipient of the Best Paper Award from the ASCE Journal of Computing. Within Georgia Tech, he has received the Outstanding Innovative Use of Education Technology Award and the W. Roane Beard Outstanding Teacher Award. Dr. Baker serves as the Secretary General of the International Association of Continuing Engineering Education (IACEE) and is also the Past President of the University Professional Continuing Education Association (UPCEA). He is the Past-Chair of the Georgia Board of Regents Administrative Committee on Public Service and Continuing Education, and he is an active member of ASEE and ASCE. Dr. Baker graduated from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 1980 with a B.C.E. in Civil Engineering. He earned his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Civil Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University in 198