About Us

​Investigators

• Jennie Chiu, PhD is an Associate Professor in the School of Education and Human Development at the University of Virginia who researches how to integrate computational thinking into science teaching and has led professional learning with K-8 educators toward that end.
• Camilo Vieira, PhD is an engineer and educator working on teacher professional development in Colombia at Universidad del Norte. He completed his postdoctoral experience and PhD at Purdue University.
• Karen Carter, Co-Principal Investigator, Associate Professor of Information Systems in the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science at UVA-WISE. BSc in Business Education at Radford University, MSc in Business Analytics from Lincoln Memorial University and MSc in Management Information Systems at Bowie State University, and PhD in Occupational Technical Studies in STEM at Old Dominion University. 
• Briana Morrison, Co-Investigator, Director of the CompEdCenter for Innovation in Computing Education and Outreach in the Computer Science Department at UVA. Dr. Morrison is a CS education researcher and professor whose goal is to make learning programming more accessible to all. 
• Kim Wilkens, Co-Investigator, founder of Tech-Girls and Charlottesville Women in Tech. Wilkens has worked for over two decades to bring CS into both school and out-of-school settings for historically marginalized youth. 
  
• Jessica Whittaker, Co-Investigator, Associate Professor in Education Leadership, Foundations, and Policy, at UVA. Dr. Whittaker holds a B.S. in Psychology from Duke University and Ph.D. in Human Development from the University of Maryland, College Park. 
• Brian Wright, Co-Investigator, Director of Undergraduate Programs, School of Data Science at UVA. Dr. Wright is also the School of Data Science Director for the School’s first collaboratory with the UVA School of Education and Human Development. 

Research Assistants

• Alejandro Espinal is a PhD student at Universidad del Norte. His doctoral research is professional development in computational thinking with K-12 teachers.
• Eric Bredder is a PhD student at the in the School of Education at the University of Virginia with a focus on CS and STEM education. He is an educator that has experience teaching technology and engineering at middle school, high school, and community college levels.