As professor and dean of Morgan State University, Dr. Barton encourages engineers to “learn their craft through a cultural lens.”

Dr. Oscar Barton, Jr., PhD, is an engineer and educator who has dedicated his career to expanding opportunities for young engineers. As the dean of Morgan State’s engineering program since 2020, he has built a world-class faculty and programs in engineering physics, mechatronics, and secure embedded systems. Having previously lead engineering departments at the United States Naval Academy and George Mason University, Dr. Barton has consistently emphasized high standards for both institutions and students—expanding programming, gaining recognition through accreditation, and ensuring high graduation rates and workforce preparedness.

Barton serves as the vice chair of the Council of HBCU Engineering Deans, and has demonstrated his commitment to HBCUs throughout his career. He is a graduate of Tuskegee University and Howard University, and now spearheads impressive developments at Morgan State. He led efforts to establish its mechatronics engineering program in 2021 (the first at a public HBCU in Maryland), launch of the only undergraduate environmental engineering program in Maryland in 2023, and earn a five-year grant from the National Nuclear Security Administration to establish a nuclear engineering program.

The American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) awarded Dr. Barton the Edwin F. Church Medal in 2024 for his outstanding contributions to engineering and education. Reflecting on the importance of training new engineers, he remarked that “it is the best thing for us as a country to capitalize on all talent possible to ensure that we maintain this economic superiority and build upon it.”

In 2025, Dr. Barton got the opportunity to build upon his own work on the global stage when he received a Fulbright International Education Administrators (IEA) Program award to France and Senegal. Together with a cohort of American university presidents, deans, and administrators, he met with local leaders in higher education and policymakers, with the goal of building mutually beneficial partnerships and international opportunities for Morgan State’s engineering students. The discussions were facilitated by the “high esteem that our host institutions shared for the Fulbright Program.”  

Thanks to the connections developed through Fulbright, he plans to work with institutions such as Senegal’s University Cheikh Anta Diop to “build a pipeline for students to graduate in one of Morgan’s engineering disciplines – civil, environmental, electrical, industrial, mechatronics, or transportation – and return home to accelerate Senegal’s expanding tech economy.”

 “[The Fulbright Program is] a tremendous opportunity to represent engineering education globally and advocate for excellence in higher education,” says Dr. Barton.

Through Fulbright, Dr. Barton was able to gain an understanding of international accreditation from the perspective of France’s CESI School of Engineering. Accreditation has been a long-time emphasis of Dr. Barton’s as he works as a program evaluator, team chair, and commissioner with the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET), an organization based in the United States which accredits academic programs in over in 42 countries. Since returning to Morgan State, he has continued his conversations with the CESI School so more institutions—and their students’ degrees—can benefit from accreditation.

Dr. Barton says he is “excited about growing the numbers of engineering students that participate in the Fulbright program to learn their craft through a cultural lens.”

At Morgan State, Dr. Barton is a member of a distinguished network of faculty and students who are part of the Fulbright community. As of 2025, graduates of Morgan State have received 67 U.S. Student Awards, and faculty had been selected for 33 Fulbright U.S. Scholar Awards, three Fulbright Specialist Awards, and eight Fulbright-Hays Awards, earning Morgan State multiple recognitions as a Fulbright HBCU Institutional Leader.