Barbara Oakley
Engineering professor and author
Barbara Oakley is an engineering professor who co-created the online course Learning How To Learn. She also wrote the companion book A Mind for Numbers.
2 summaries 35 min of listening
American Born 1955 in Lodi, United States
About Barbara Oakley
Oakley teaches engineering at Oakland University and McMaster University. Her online courses on learning rank among the most popular MOOCs (massive open online courses) worldwide. A Mind for Numbers is the book that accompanies Learning How To Learn. She has also written opinion pieces for The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. Her path to engineering was unusual. She joined the US Army straight after high school, studied Russian, and rose to the rank of captain. She later studied engineering, worked as a Russian translator on Soviet trawlers in the Bering Sea, and spent a season as radio operator at the South Pole Station. She earned a Ph.D. in Systems Engineering in 1998 and then joined the Oakland University faculty. Her book Hair of the Dog recounts her time on the trawlers.