Dr. Charles Barber was appointed to the Senior Executive Service (SES) and assumed the duties as Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer for the National Science Foundation in January 2023. He previously served as Director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Programs, Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Manpower and Reserve Affairs.
Dr. Barber is a TEDx speaker and served as the featured speaker on DEI at the 2022 DAU TEDx conference. He is a previous guest lecturer at Harvard Kennedy School’s Senior Executive Fellows Program for Political Science and Government and is a U.S. Army veteran with deployments to Kosovo and Iraq.
A native of Bald Knob, AR, he also starred as a sprinter on the Ouachita Baptist University and All Army Track Teams and achieved a personal best of 9.98 seconds in the 100 meter dash. Dr. Barber holds the title of Fastest Man in the Army and was recently inducted into the Arkansas Track and Field Hall of Fame.