Betsy DiSalvo

About

Dr. Betsy DiSalvo is an Associate Professor in the School of Interactive Computing at Georgia Tech. Her work focuses on computer science (CS) education and informal learning, with an emphasis on developing innovative approaches to increase transfer and reflection in CS courses through maker-oriented learning projects. She is the principal investigator for several NSF-funded projects, including the DataWorks project, which provides CS education through entry-level jobs in authentic working environments for minority young adults. DiSalvo collaborates with game developers and others to create educational games such as Beats Empire, which assesses CS learning outcomes, and Hemonauts, designed to help chronically ill children learn science concepts related to their bodies. Over the past decade, her research has explored the use of information technology by minority parents in their children’s education, working with African American and Latin American parents in Atlanta. She has also led initiatives like the Glitch Game Testers program, a CS education effort targeting African American males, and has worked on projects for various museums and art centers, including the Carnegie Science Museum, the Children’s Museum of Atlanta, Eyedrum Art Center, and the Walker Art Center.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Data science
• Mathematics education
• Psychology
• Pedagogy
• Knowledge management
• World Wide Web
• Software engineering
• Engineering
• Management science

Selected publications

• Culture in Action: Unpacking Capacities to Inform Assets-Based Design

  2020-04-21 · 78 citations

  articleSenior author

  The field of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) aims at securing a lasting impact for technology-based interventions in the context of social inequities. Increasingly, HCI scholars are proposing assets-based design as an effective approach towards this issue. Rather than starting from people's needs and deficits, this approach posits that design should start from a deep understanding of people's assets. A pending issue, however, is how to account for the situated nature of assets; that is, how to…

  PublisherDOI

• From Needs to Strengths

  2020-10-15 · 59 citations

  article

  Guided by a human-centered design focus on users' needs, Computer-Supported Collaborative Work (CSCW) research and practice have increasingly explored how to address the multiple inequities affecting historically marginalized groups. A growing body of CSCW and Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) research, building upon education and community development literature, argues that centering on needs dismisses marginalized users' capacity for driving change. Needs-based views often lead to designs for…

  PublisherDOI

• Reflections on Assets-Based Design: A Journey Towards A Collective of Assets-Based Thinkers

  Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction · 2021-10-13 · 53 citations

  articleSenior author

  The field of Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) has long recognized a socio-technical gap complicating the design of technologies that can sustainably meet social needs. In response, a growing body of research advocates for assets-based design, an approach that seeks to build upon what the individuals and community already have. The emphasis on positioning assets rather than needs at the center of the process can complicate designers' decisions on what activities to foster, how to conduc…

  PublisherDOI

• Interrogating Data Work as a Community of Practice

  Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction · 2022-11-07 · 26 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  We apply Lave & Wenger's construct of a community of practice to identify and position members of the data work community of practice, focusing on members on the periphery who have received less attention - as compared to full practitioners (e.g., data scientists). Reporting on results of interviews with 19 civic workers who perform data work as their main task, we identify an atypical relationship between subject-domain experts (such as our interviewees) and full members of the data work co…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• When Workers Want to Say No: A View into Critical Consciousness and Workplace Democracy in Data Work

  Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction · 2024-04-17 · 15 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  In this paper, we describe and reflect upon the development of critical consciousness and workplace democracy within an experimental workplace called DataWorks. Through DataWorks, we hire adults from communities historically minoritized in computing education and data careers, and train them in entry-level data skills developed through work on client projects. In this process, workers gain a range of skills. Some of these skills are technical, such as programming for data analysis; some are mana…

  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Carl DiSalvo

  Georgia Institute of Technology

  12 shared

• Kayla DesPortes

  11 shared

• Mark Guzdial

  Michigan United

  11 shared

• Amy Bruckman

  10 shared

• Annabel Rothschild

  9 shared

• Marisol Wong-Villacrés

  Escuela Superior Politecnica del Litoral

  8 shared

• Tom McKlin

  7 shared

• Ben Rydal Shapiro

  Georgia State University

  6 shared

Education

• Ph.D., School of Interactive Computing

  Georgia Institute of Technology

  2012

Similar researchers at Georgia Institute of Technology

• Frank Dellaerth-65
• Mark Borodovskyh-64
• Irfan Essah-63