Meet Our Professors: Nathan Barker, CSIS
Posted: October 12, 2018 | Author: Kaylene Linford | Read Time: 2 minutes
The technology field is growing rapidly, and Dr. Nathan Barker and his students are in the thick of it. Beginning his education at Southern Utah University as an undergrad with a fascination of binary numbers, Dr. Barker is now an associate professor of computer science at SUU.
During the summer after high school, a friend explained the concept of binary to Barker. He was so fascinated about computing that he decided to pursue it in college and as a career. Barker received his bachelor’s in computer science, math, and German at SUU, and his doctorate in computer science at the University of Utah.
“Advances in technology are happening at an exponential speed;self-driving cars, drones, phones, smart devices, virtual reality, social media, and security,” said Baker. “Computing is transforming almost every field of study we have today and it is such an exciting time to be in this field."
Computing involves problem-solving, and one of Barker’s favorite ways to teach students how to solve problems in computing is recursion.
“Recursion is an idea that you can take a problem and break it into a smaller version of itself, and keep doing that until you have only the most basic of thing to solve,” said Baker. “It is so fun to watch students as they gradually come to an understanding of how to solve problems using this method, and see how powerful it can be.”
Barker teaches the following classes at SUU:
- CS 1000 Introduction Computer App
- CS 2420 Int Algorithms/Data Structure
- CS 3000 Adv Algorithms/Data Structure
- CS 3300 Mobile App Development for Android
- CS 3400 Graphics Programming
Barker loves that SUU focuses on teaching, giving students a solid foundation in their education.
“Professors here are asked to spend most of their time teaching students,” said Barker. “This leads to an environment where students are able to come and learn from professors who focus on them and are not spending the majority of their time on outside research projects.”
This article was published more than 5 years ago and might contain outdated information or broken links. As a result, its accuracy cannot be guaranteed.
Tags: Faculty
