Barbara Lockee

Dr. Barbara Lockee is Associate Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs and Professor of Instructional Design and Technology (IDT) at Virginia Tech. She provides strategic leadership for institutional faculty development across the career lifecycle — from onboarding and early-career mentoring through promotion, tenure, and ongoing growth.

Dr. Lockee’s scholarship explores the intersection of instructional design and online learning and shapes her approach to this work. For over 30 years, she has mentored 60 Ph.D. advisees and served on more than 200 doctoral committees, experience she now leverages in leading faculty mentoring initiatives campus wide. During the Covid-19 pandemic, her research and outreach supported the rapid shift to online instruction in education and workplace settings worldwide. Her research and educational innovations have been funded by NSF, NASA, and USAID, as well as private foundations and donor support. She has consulting experience spanning higher education, K-12, healthcare, military, government, and nonprofit sectors, work that informs her ability to design faculty programming responsive to the varied contexts and career stages represented across Virginia Tech. Her contributions to the advancement of scholarship and best practices in education have been recognized with a number of awards, including the prestigious David H. Jonassen Excellence in Research Award (2022) and induction into Appalachian State University’s Rhododendron Society, the Reich College of Education’s highest alumni honor (2022). 

Dr. Lockee is past president of the Association for Educational Communications and Technology, and she currently serves as the board chair of CMR Institute, a continuing education provider for the life sciences industry. Her co-authored book, Streamlined ID: A Practical Guide for Instructional Design, reflects the same practical and evidence-based philosophy she brings to designing faculty development at Virginia Tech.