Sneha Veeragoudar Harrell

Sneha Veeragoudar Harrell, Ph.D., is a Research Scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) whose research fosters transformative computer-based learning experiences for youth under-represented in STEM disciplines. Her research seeks to catalyze youth excitement about computing as a means of empowerment, problem solving, and self-expression. She currently serves as the learning sciences expert on an NSF funded project investigating relations between virtual and physical world social identities in computer science learning. Previously, she directed critical ethnography research projects in California and Georgia, using virtual worlds and environments as sites of computational literacy interventions. These interventions took place at alternative school for students expelled from the mainstream and an independent school for refugee girls. She completed a Postdoctoral Fellowship with TERC, a Cambridge-based non-profit STEM education research think tank. She earned her Ph.D. in Cognition and Development at the University of California, Berkeley in the Graduate School of Education. She is co-chair of the Social Sciences Advisory Board for the National Center for Women in Information Technology.