My Background
I was born and raised in nearby Greensboro, Georgia. As a young learner, I aspired to work creatively in the STEM industry. I didn’t know what that meant in terms of career path, but I assumed I would learn through my educational journey. After graduating with the honor of Salutatorian from high school, I attended Georgia Southern University and earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Information Technology. Upon graduation, I took a job as an application programmer assistant for Enterprise Information Technology Services (EITS) at The University of Georgia.
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I didn’t discover the correct terminology for what I desired to do until after graduation when I realized the maker community was the perfect embodiment of it. While working on the university campus I came across the concept of craft technology and maker education. Michael Eisenberg, of the then Craft Technology lab at the University of Colorado-Boulder, defines craft technology as the blending of common crafts with computational technology (“CU Boulder Craft Tech Lab,” n.d.). Maker education utilizes elements from the maker community, constructionism, tinkering, do-it-yourself mindset, and applies it in an educational setting.
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From that moment on, it became my mission to ensure that other youths, specifically those that are underrepresented in STEM, have access and knowledge about these kinds of interventions. It is this calling that informs my interest in STEM inclusion through maker education and craft technology and the evaluation of their potential to engage underrepresented youth in STEM.
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After earning my Ph.D. degree in Learning, Design, and Technology, I plan to continue to focus on research around the ideas of computational craft, learning experiences, constructionism, and STEM inclusion. I envision working at a research one institution. My goal would be to lead a research lab that investigates and designs these types of interventions.
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References:
CU Boulder Craft Tech Lab. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://cucraftlab.org/