Get to know Bakar Bey
September 12, 2023
Even as an undergrad aerospace engineering student at Virginia Tech in the early aughts, Bakar Bey was interested in education. As a sophomore, he founded the student organization EXPRESSIONS to cultivate creative thinking and expression in education through cultural arts and technologies.
After receiving his bachelor’s degree in 2009, Bey returned to Tech in 2011 to pursue his master’s in industrial systems engineering. His passion for education grew through his work as a graduate teaching assistant supporting a study abroad engineering course and from teaching foundations in engineering workshops.
Bey has worked as an aircraft structural design engineer and researcher, quality manufacturing engineer, financial adviser, higher ed engineering instructor, math tutor, teacher and a habit and accountability coach. And now, at age 37, he is on course to complete his Ed.D. from VCU’s School of Education in 2026.
“I entered the Education Leadership Ed.D. program as a passionate lifelong learner and career-switcher with a desire to integrate personal accountability training and intentional habit development into our education system,” Bey said. “I most look forward to finishing the program and following through with my expectations set before, during and after this journey.”
Those expectations include licensing and developing his own accountability and habit-coaching systems to integrate into schools and businesses, while teaching and publishing related material.
“My greatest expectation,” Bey said, “is to positively grow and produce in a way that after completing my program, I am extraordinarily unrecognizable to the man who made the decision to start this journey. And I mean it in the most positive way imaginable.”
— Leila Ugincius, VCU News