Student & Alumni Profiles

Merredith Portsmore

Degrees: M.A. Education, Tufts University, B.S. Mechanical Engineering, B.A. English, Tufts University

My high school calculus teacher, Leon Varjian, said every day, "If you are good at math and science, if you like math and science – consider a career in science and engineering." So, off I went to college to pursue a degree in engineering with little idea about what engineering was about. I liked engineering but what I really liked was the work I did one summer helping teachers figure out how to bring engineering into their classroom. I stayed at Tufts to earn a graduate degree in Education and then went on to work as a program manager at the Tufts Center for Engineering Educational Outreach (CEEO) for 5 years. At the CEEO, I helped to develop software (ROBOLAB) to bring engineering into the classroom. I also worked on teacher professional development and web development projects. During my time as a project manager, I came to understand that there were many unanswered questions about how to engage children in learning engineering and how best to design engineering education resource. To help answer some of those questions I headed back to school in 2004 for a Ph.D. to learn how to become an educational researcher.

Research Interests: I am interested in learning how children learn to design – from block corner to building bridges. My dissertation topic focuses on how first-grade students engage plan and how to teach them how to plan solutions for engineering design problems.