Constance Steinkuehler
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Constance Steinkuehler | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | Constance Steinkuehler |
| Alma mater | University of Missouri, University of Wisconsin–Madison |
| Known for | Game-based learning |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 2 |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Education Game-based learning Literacy Informatics |
| Institutions | University of California, Irvine University of Wisconsin–Madison Office of Science and Technology Policy |
| Doctoral advisor | James Paul Gee |
Constance Steinkuehler is an American professor of Informatics at the University of California, Irvine. She previously taught at the University of Wisconsin-Madison before taking public service leave, from 2011-2012, to work as a Senior Policy Analyst in the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) at the White House Executive Office, where she advised on policy matters about video games and digital media.[1]
Steinkuehler studies cognition, culture, and learning in multiplayer online games. She is the co-director of the Games+Learning+Society Center at UC Irvine and teaches courses on games and society.[2]
Steinkuehler earned bachelor's degrees in Mathematics, English, and Religious Studies from the University of Missouri in 1993.[3] She completed an MS in Educational Psychology (Cognitive Science) in 2000 and a PhD in Curriculum and Instruction in 2005 at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Her dissertation was a cognitive ethnography of Lineage and World of Warcraft.[4][5]
Professional career
Research
After earning her doctorate, Steinkuehler joined the faculty at University of Wisconsin as an Assistant Professor of Digital Media in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction.[6]
From 2005 to 2013, her research team studied cognition and learning in online games, focusing on scientific reasoning, literacy, and problem-solving within game communities using mixed methods.[7]
Between 2007 and 2009, she led an after-school gaming program for disengaged teens to explore the differences between learning in games and in school, including how adolescents read and engage with game-related versus academic texts.[8]
After a period working in the Obama White House Office of Science and Technology,[9] Steinkuehler returned to academic research with a new focus on field-building efforts. Research projects during this period (2012-2016) include collaborations with Dr. Richard Davidson through the Center for Investigating Healthy Minds on the design and testing of games for emotional acuity and self-regulation as well as cross-institutional efforts to situate big data (combining telemetry game data exhaust with conversational utterances across small groups of middle school game players) to better understand collaborative learning through game-based interventions.[10]
In 2017, Steinkuehler and her partner Kurt Squire moved to the Department of Informatic at University of California, Irvine and re-established the Games+Learning+Society (GLS) Center as part of the trans-departmental Connected Learning Lab at UCI.[11]
