Golnaz Arastoopour Irgens
IDEA Lab Director, Assistant Professor of Human-Centered Technologies
Golnaz Arastoopour Irgens is an assistant professor in the Department of Teaching and Learning at Vanderbilt University, director of the IDEA lab, and core faculty in LIVE, the Learning Innovation Incubator at Vanderbilt. She is a former middle school computer science and high school mathematics teacher and earned her B.S. in mechanical engineering from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, M.A. in mathematics education from Columbia University Teacher’s College, and M.S. and Ph.D. in learning sciences from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Arastoopour Irgens has a genuine love for learning new technologies and works to engage children in innovative and inclusive technological learning. Her research focuses on (1) designing digital learning environments that integrate computer science and culturally-responsive/critical pedagogies and (2) using quantitative ethnography and other learning analytics to make sense of how learners engage with digital technologies. In her design-based research, she engages in participatory methods that actively involve children, teachers, and community partners working together to co-design digital learning environments that serve their communities.
Since 2020, Arastoopour Irgens has served as the vice president of the International Society for Quantitative Ethnography. She has published over 50 articles in peer-reviewed journals and conference proceedings and is the developer of GROOVA, a data visualization tool for elementary-school students. In 2021, she served on the writing team for the South Carolina K-12 science standards. Arastoopour Irgens has received numerous early career awards which include the Clemson University Provost Junior Tenure-Track Outstanding Teaching Award, the Clemson College of Education Junior Researcher of the Year award, and the National Science Foundation CAREER award. She was runner up for the AERA Jan Hawkins Award.