Barron's research examines processes of collaborative learning in informal and school settings. She studies how individuals work together to create joint products and how what is learned and created through their interactions is fundamentally related to the quality of the dialogue that takes place.  In a five year NSF supported CAREER award she is documenting adolescents' school-based learning ecologies for technological fluency development across diverse communities in the Silicon Valley region with the goal of understanding how to design more equitable opportunities for learning. She is also involved in a multi-year research and development project that designs and studies high school level project-based computer science courses (http://bermuda.stanford.edu).  This university-school collaboration builds on her earlier research in problem and project-based learning and a goal of the research is documenting non-traditional learning outcomes such as increases in the diversity of learning resources students access and their knowledge sharing with community members. In a new project she is co-leading a Science of Learning Center, funded by the National Science Foundation in 2005, that will work to integrate research on formal learning, informal learning, and implicit learning. Her work appears in books and journals including Journal of Educational Psychology, Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, Journal of the Learning Sciences, Communications of the  Association for Computing Machinery, Journal of Computer Mediated Communication, and Human Development. She has co-edited a book on the use of video as data in Learning Sciences research.

Ugochi is a doctoral student in the Learning Sciences and Technology Design program at Stanford University.  She received a Masters in Computer Science with a specialty in HCI 2005, and Bachelors in Electrical Engineering in 2003. Both degrees were earned at Stanford University. Her research interests include Computers as cognitive tools, User Interfaces and Gaming Technology for the promotion of learning in young children, and cultural influences of access, use, and learning with technology.

Karin studies the choices people make in learning new technology applications, with a special focus on teachers and students using technology in school. Some research questions of special interest include the impact of different social networks on technology use and interest development, the roles of colleagues in motivating and supporting teacher technology use, and the features of tools that make them most useful and user-friendly in the classroom context.

Indigo Esmonde

Indigo was a postdoctoral fellow with the LIFE center at Stanford in 2007-08. She is now an Assistant Professor at the University of Toronto. Her research interests are in collaboration, in school and out-of-school settings, and the co-development of identity and learning. Indigo graduated from UC Berkeley's Graduate School of Education in 2006, with a dissertation entitled: "How are we supposed to, like, learn it, if none of us know?": Opportunities to learn and equity in mathematics cooperative learning structures".

Rachel Fithian

Rachel Fithian is a doctoral student in the Learning Sciences and Technology Design program at Stanford's School of Education. She is interested in research on the influence of gender in children's experiences with computers, and on the uses of technology to support people with disabilities and the ways people learn to use these technologies. Before coming to Stanford, Rachel received her MS degree in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) from Georgia Tech, and her research interests have a definite HCI flavor. She loved Atlanta and misses it very much. Before Georgia Tech, Rachel recieved a BS in computer engineering from Princeton University.

Sarah Lewis

Sarah Lewis is a third year Ph.D. student at Stanford in the Psychological Studies in Education program, with a special area focus on Learning Sciences and Technology Design. Her current research focuses on the digital divide issues, informal learning environments, learning in design contexts. Sites of research have included community technology centers in the US, South Africa, the Middle East, and India. Sarah has a Masters degree in Learning, Design and Technology from Stanford. Before returning for her Ph.D., Sarah joined SRI International's Center for Technology in Learning, where she worked on both evaluation and design projects, including program evaluations of Department of Education's Community Technology Programs, classroom and web-based teacher professional development programs, as well as design and evaluation of hand-held classroom technologies for math and science. Sarah has four years' classroom teaching experience in high school math and computer skills, and spent three years as a director of a community technology center where she lead programs to engage youth in youth web design, robotics, and programming.

Caitlin Kennedy Martin

Since receiving her Masters from Stanford in 1999 in Learning, Design and Technology, Caitlin has worked at Stanford doing research, assessment, and media design for educational technology projects. She has been the lead in a formative assessment of techonlogy projects funded by the Oracle Education Foundation in local community centers and schools since 2003. Since 2000 she has been the project director of the Bermuda Computing Curriculum project, the design of a project-based programming and multimedia curricula, development and implementation of professional development to support the courses, and research into student learning, interests, experiences, and future plans. Caitlin is also involved in Professor Barron’s learning ecologies research, documenting exemplary technology education tools and practices found in diverse communities. Prior to graduate work she was a graphic designer of children's books at Farrar, Straus & Giroux in NYC.

Emma Mercier

Emma is a doctoral candidate in the Psychological Studies in Education Program at Stanford. Her research focuses on collaborative learning, the interaction patterns that lead to learning and the educational contexts that
promote those interactions. She is also interested in technology and fluency equity, and how to create experiences to engage underrepresented populations with technology. She has a MA in Psychology from Edinburgh University.

Maryanna Rogers

Maryanna is a doctoral student in the Psychological Studies in Education program at Stanford. Her current research investigates the psychosocial experience of working on design projects, including intrinsic motivation, empathy, and mindfulness. She is also interested in how the design process intersects with mental and public health intervention design. In practice, Maryanna has worked on design projects involving HIV/AIDS social marketing in Ethiopia, the Caribbean, and domestically. She has also collaborated on new media design projects developed to treat and prevent anxiety disorders, depression, and eating disorders. Maryanna has a BS in Radio/TV/Film from Northwestern University and an MA in Learning, Design, & Technology from Stanford. Prior to her graduate career, she worked in the film and television industry in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles, taught English in France, and researched youth depression and anxiety in the Clinical Psychology Department at UCLA.

Colin Schatz

Colin Schatz is a doctoral candidate in the Curriculum and Teacher Education program of Stanford's School of Education, and a masters candidate in the Computer Science department. His research examines the relationship between identity development and conceptual development, with a focus on novice programming language learners. Colin holds a bachelor's degree in Physics from Swarthmore College. Prior to beginning graduate study, he wandered through various professional and educational experiences, including a year as a Fulbright Scholar in Taiwan and various programming and web designing gigs (including the University of Washington and Smartbrief.com). Most recently, Colin spent three years as a secondary classroom teacher in Chemistry, Physics and Computer Science and coached the only all-female student robotics team in the Greater Washington, D.C. region.

Daniel Stringer's research investigates youth participation in out-of-school educational programming, with a focus on youth development and community empowerment. Daniel is a Doctoral student in Stanford's Programs in Learning Sciences and Technology Design and Psychological Studies in Education. Daniel received his B.S. from Stanford in Science, Technology, and Society where he studied contemporary issues in social equity and information technology. Prior to beginning graduate school, Daniel worked for Google in Mountain View, California, and worked in small business development in New Orleans. He as also helped to organize and direct multiple academic enrichment and youth development programs in California and North Carolina.

Lori Takeuchi is a doctoral candidate in the Learning Sciences and Technology Design (LSTD) program at Stanford. Her research focuses on the role that scientific investigation technologies (such as GIS) play in supporting authentic science learning. Lori spent seven years designing and producing curriculum-based software in the greater Boston area for companies including BBN Educational Technologies, LOGAL Software, and Riverdeep Interactive Learning. She received her EdM in Technology in Education from Harvard University, before which she managed Thirteen/WNET's instructional television department in New York. Lori earned her bachelor's degree in Communication at Stanford.

Sarah Walter

Sarah Walter received a BS in cognitive science from UCLA, and then worked as an interaction designer for Yahoo! for two years before coming to Stanford. She is currently a doctoral candidate in the Learning Sciences and Technology Design program. Her research involves the examination of game play and game design elements, in their relation to social and cognitive processes, as well as the more general "learning with games." She has a particular interest in gender differences around technical education and development, and game play. She has spent two recent summers in production work on Sims titles at Electronic Arts, and one summer helping kids learn how to program their own games.

Susie Wise

Susie is a doctoral student in Learning Sciences and Technology Design. Her research focuses on children's tech fluency development and designing contexts for informal learning. Before graduate program she designed learning technologies at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.