Laura Larke (larke@mit.edu)

Dr. Laura Larke is a qualitative researcher and social theorist interested in equity and power in K-12 computer science education. She is a postdoctoral associate and teaching fellow at the MIT Teaching Systems Lab, affiliate of Harvard University’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society, and associate editor at Policy & Internet. She was previously a postdoctoral researcher at the Oxford Internet Institute and completed her DPhil and MSc in the University of Oxford’s Learning & New Technologies Research Group. She is also a strong proponent of public education, former community college student, and graduate of the University of California, Santa Cruz. During the 2020-21 academic year, Dr. Larke will continue her work on two NSF-funded projects, both focused on broadening participation and success in K-12 computer science education. She will be supporting teacher-educators’ authoring of digital clinical simulations for use in pre-service and in-service computer science teacher training. Additionally, she will be shepherding a researcher-practitioner partnership between five public school districts, the Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents (M.A.S.S.), MIT, and UMass Boston to rework internal systems and practices in order for schools to move towards our shared goal of CSforAll. Dr. Larke will also be co-teaching the Learning, Media, and Technology Seminar (CMS.595/.895) in Fall 2020.