Quick Facts
Biography
Ryan S. Baker (born 1977 in Naperville, Illinois) is an associate professor of education and computer science at the University of Pennsylvania, and also directs the Penn Center for Learning Analytics. He is known for his role in establishing the educational data mining scientific community, for the Baker Rodrigo Ocumpaugh Monitoring Protocol (BROMP), and for establishing the first automated detector of student disengagement.
Early life and education
Baker obtained a bachelor's degree in Computer Science at Brown University, and a doctorate in Human-Computer Interaction from Carnegie Mellon University. His doctoral advisers were Kenneth Koedinger and Albert T. Corbett.
Career
Baker worked as Assistant Professor at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, as Associate Professor at Teachers College, Columbia University, and as Associate Professor with tenure at University of Pennsylvania. He also served as the Julius and Rosa Sachs Distinguished Lecturer at Teachers College, Columbia University.
Role in Development of Educational Data Mining Field
Baker was Founding President of the International Educational Data Mining Society, and was one of the first (and current) Associate Editors of the Journal of Educational Data Mining. He served as founding Director of the Pittsburgh Science of Learning Center DataShop, at one time the world's largest public repository for educational interaction data.
Baker taught the MOOC Big Data and Education multiple times, on both the Coursera and edX platforms. He also founded the world's first Masters program in Learning Analytics.
Research on Automated Detectors
Baker developed automated detectors that make inferences in real-time about students' affect and motivational and meta-cognitive behaviors, including the first automated detector of student disengagement, and work to link these constructs to long-term student achievement. These automated detectors have been embedded into several online learning systems used at scale in the United States, including ASSISTments.
Baker's research to develop automated detectors of engagement also led to the development of Baker Rodrigo Ocumpaugh Monitoring Protocol (BROMP), a protocol for classroom observation that has been used to study student engagement in a range of settings, including research on traditional classroom practices and informal field education.
Collaborations
Baker has co-authored peer-reviewed scientific papers with around 300 other scientists, including Neil Heffernan, Vincent Aleven, Arthur C. Graesser, and George Siemens, leading to him being listed as one of the most collaborative scientists in his field. As of this writing, Baker has around 300 papers, with over 8,000 citations and an h-index over 40.