George Frederick Barker

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George Frederick Barker (July 14, 1835 – May 24, 1910) was an American physicist, chemist, and physician. He was born in Charlestown, Massachusetts, and graduated from the Yale Scientific School in 1858. He worked as a chemical assistant at Harvard Medical School (1858–59 and 1860–61) and taught chemistry and geology at Wheaton College in Illinois.

In 1864 he became Professor of Natural Science at the Western University of Pennsylvania (now the University of Pittsburgh). There he did experiments to produce electric light by passing current through a resisting filament, which he claimed was the first steady electric light in Pittsburgh, possibly in the country.

Barker later taught at Yale as a professor of physiological chemistry and toxicology, and then was a professor of physics at the University of Pennsylvania from 1879 to 1900, after which he became emeritus. He held several leadership roles in science: president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (1879), president of the American Chemical Society, and vice-president of the American Philosophical Society for ten years. He was a member of the U.S. Electrical Commission and an associate editor of the American Journal of Science. He lectured widely and wrote several books, including Text-Book of Elementary Chemistry (1870) and Physics (1892).