Barry Greenberg

Professor Emeritus Barry Greenberg passed away on October 11, 2020. Brooklyn born and raised, Barry graduated from Lincoln High in 1958, when he was 16 years old. After graduating Brooklyn College with a degree in mathematics he received a combined master’s and PhD in statistics and educational research from NYU.

Barry was a passionate educator having started his career as a junior-high school teacher before moving to undergraduate and then graduate level professorships. He was Director of Institutional Research at Miami Dade Community College in the 1960s, before leaving for a similar role at the then newly formed Florida International University. In addition to his professorship, he served for a time as Assistant Provost and President of the Faculty Senate.

Barry was involved in research and evaluation of the efficacy of educational programs for almost 50 years. His work took him from the Bahamas to Oxford University and many spots in-between. He helped Native Americans in Florida and the Hebrew Academy on Miami Beach. He studied topics ranging from the value of early childhood reading to the importance of healthy school-grown eating in under privileged elementary schools.

For the last 20 years he was involved in the medical field as an entrepreneur having established an online training evaluation program for medical residents that was adopted by a number of hospitals. More importantly to him, he trained medical students at Miami Children’s Hospital in the fundamentals of research. This led him to his final phase of work in Evidence-based Medicine. He was so proud to have participated in research in what was then a beginning field of specialty at Oxford.

Barry always had ideas. Most of them ahead of their time. After first arriving in Miami, he invented and produced the Magic Mathbox, a game-base math education kit used in classrooms in NYC and Miami. Outside of academia, he produced flannel bedding with his wife, called Sweats-for-the-Bed. After too many nights of lost sleep, he very much wanted to produce a device to test restaurant coffee to make sure decaf was actually decaf. And there was going to be an App to put the photographer in the picture he just took. Barry wanted to invent a more advanced selfie before there was a selfie.

He was married to his wife, Shelley for more than 56 years, having asked her out for 4 dates to start when they met at Brooklyn College. He was a second son to Shelley’s parents, Sam and Gertie, and the only son to his parents, Jack and Lillian. He loved his daughter Blythe and his son-in-law Leon, and his son Craig and his daughter-in-law Yolanda, until his last breath. His two granddaughters, Peyton and Alexandra were his life and hope for a better world.