DevTech Team: Laura Beals

Laura Beals is a fifth-year doctoral candidate in the Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Development at Tufts University. She has worked with Prof. Marina Bers and the DevTech Research group since 2002 on projects such as Project Inter-Actions, Virtual Communities of Learning and Care at Children's Hospital Boston and ClubZora, where she served as the project coordinator. Her primary areas of interest are in research methodology and evaluation, innovative technology-based research methods for use with children and adolescents, and nonprofit management and organization.

In addition to her work in the DevTech Research Group, Laura works as a consultant at Connected Beginnings Training Institute , where she manages the online learning communities and collaborates with the evaluation team. Laura also worked at the Center for Engineering Educational Outreach (CEEO) at Tufts University. Laura completed her master's degree from Eliot-Pearson in 2006, with her thesis focusing on a new technology and methodology for observing robotics education in early childhood classrooms. She graduated in 2004 summa cum laude in an innovative multidisciplinary program combining Child Development with a BS from the College of Engineering at Tufts University.