Marti Louw
[ APPOINTMENTS ]
Research Faculty
University of Pittsburgh
Center for Learning in Out-of-School Environments (UPCLOSE)
Learning Research & Development Center
Research Associate
Carnegie Museum of Natural History
Center for Lifelong Science Learning
Louw brings 15 years of experience in science communication and the design of informal learning experiences to the center. Her design research practice spans a range of educational media environments including broadcast television, websites, multimedia exhibits and informal learning venues from museum to everyday public spaces; and lies at the intersection of generative design practice and academic inquiry. She has written and produced science documentaries and web content for WGBH/NOVA and the Scientific American Frontiers series on PBS. While at the Chedd-Angier Production Company she produced numerous interactive multimedia exhibits for museums and science-technology centers. Before joining UPCLOSE, Louw worked at the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh as a project developer and grant writer for the NSF funded How People Make Things traveling exhibit. In 2003, Louw completed a M.A. in Interaction Design from Carnegie Mellon University where she applied design and human-computer interaction approaches to the conceptualization, development and use of technology in informal learning experiences.
- Pittsburgh Activation Lab (Design Fellow) 2014
- University of the West of England, Science Comm Unit (Visiting Scholar) 2011
- Carnegie Mellon University, M.A. (Design) 2003
- Carleton College, B.A. (Biology) 1990
[ TRAVEL / Meetings ]
UPCOMING
16 Sept Forum on Digital Media for STEM Learning/PBS (Invited), Boston
25 Sept Dive Deeper – Water Educators Summit (Presentation), Harrisburg
18-19 Oct Association of Science & Technology Centers Conference, Raleigh
16-18 Nov Entomological Society of America Annual Meeting (Presentation), Portland
11-12 Feb CitizenScience 2015 (paper presentation/under review) San Jose
8-11 April Museums & the Web 2015, Chicago
PAST
1-2 April NARST (Presentation, Panel), Pittsburgh
17 June APOST Bi-Annual Conference (Presentation) Pittsburgh
22-23 Jul Research on Making & Learning Meeting, Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh
26 Aug NSF/AISL PI Meeting, Washington DC
8-10 Nov Tokyo Int’l Symposium for Informal Learning in Art, Science & Technology
18-19 Oct Association of Science & Technology Centers Conference, Albuquerque
17 Oct Giant Screen Research Agenda Workshop, Albuquerque
23-25 Sept The Science of Science Communication Colloquium Washington D.C.
10-11 Sept CAISE Infrastructure Coordination Roundtable Washington D.C.
26-27 June NSF Cyberlearning Synthesis & Envisioning Meeting Washington D.C.
1-3 June HCI + ISE Invited Conference Albuquerque, NM
[ INTERESTS & PROJECTS ]
UPCLOSE seeks to build a practical theory of how people learn in informal environments. I work to enact theory on project-based implementations that creatively bridge learning sciences research and interaction design practice from initial conceptualization through realization and assessment. Through collaborations, my work explores the place and definition of learning in science communication and engagement experiences. A central focus is how design and its related communication strategies can be used develop technology-rich environments that enable learning that is socially constructed, personally relevant and participatory.
Grable Design Fellow
A year-long fellowship with ASSEMBLE—a community arts and technology space—to better understand the role parents and adult caregivers play as learning brokers in youth’s lives, and then through co-design activities evolve ways to engage adults in supporting youth interest development and access to learning pathways around making and creative technology opportunities. In particular, we focus on how families are finding, judging and choosing to participate in out-of-school time activities. Based on these findings and shared insights, we are developing a set of communication design recommendations and strategies for improving family engagement. [Grable Foundation / LRDC Activation Lab]
Gigapixel Cyberinfrastructure for Participatory Science Learning (PI) leading a collaboration with the CREATE Lab (Carnegie Mellon University- Robotics Institute) and the Carnegie Museum of Natural History to build a set of cyberlearning projects based on explorations and interactions around very high-resolution gigapixel images of scientific merit to support public understanding, participation, and engagement with science. Through a design research process, the project team is exploring and prototype exemplar use cases that demonstrate how emerging gigapixel image and data visualization technologies can be used as a science communication medium that offers scientists, professionals, and publics new ways to learn science together. [NSF/DRL#1114476]
Center for the Advancement of Informal Science Education (CAISE) project lead for the CAISE Media Initiative with Sue Ellen McCann (KQED) and the CAISE Timeline Initiative with Darrell Porcello and Sherry Hsi, Lawrence Hall of Science. Other CAISE related projects include leading and documenting Inquiry Groups including Assessing the Impact of ISE Professional Online Communities, a two-day meeting focusing on how to conceptualize and evaluate successful professional online learning communities, especially those serving multidisciplinary informal science education (ISE) communities. [NSF/DRL#0638981]
City as Learning Lab (co-PI) is an innovative research and implementation project to discover how communities creatively engage with robotic technologies for learning and change. Project partners include the Community Robotics Education and Technology Empowerment (CREATE) lab at Carnegie Mellon University’s Robotics Institute, and the Georgia Institute of Technology as well as local museums, community organizations, and afterschool clubs. She collaborated on the development, prototyping and implementation of a low-cost, web-enable real time TDS monitor (www.waterbot.org) and air quality monitor for citizen science, community monitoring, data visualization, communication and engagement activities. [NSF/DRL#0610348]
NeighborhoodNets (co-PI) is series of research-based community technology empowerment projects that use participatory and co-design strategies to imagine and plan creative products, services and interventions in neighborhoods using sensing and robotic technologies. We conduct public participatory design workshops that provide opportunities for neighborhood residents to engage in the creative exploration and application of networked digital imaging and sensing technologies to publicly address their concerns and causes. Summer workshop series were conducted in Lawrenceville (project documentation), Braddock (project documentation) with community residents, and organizers, and urban youth programs. To support these participatory sensing projects, we design, develop and adapt affordable sensor and technology platforms (e.g. Canary sensing platform, Dylos air quality monitors) to suite the particular needs of these public programs. [Intel]
InformalScience.org (co-PI) led the grant writing, redesign and development this online resource to support the growth of a vibrant community of research and practice in the field of informal science education. [NSF/DRL#0610348]
The Warhol | Resources & Lessons collaborated with the Warhol Museum and oversaw the research and evaluation their new online educator curriculum project. [Alcoa]
How People Make Things conceptualized and developed this traveling exhibition with the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh as the originating co-PI, grantwriter, and project developer. [NSF/DRL#0407355]
Louw currently serves as an advisor to the National Academies’ Science & Engineering Ambassadors program and the CREATE Lab Satellite Netowork. She is on the Science Education journal Board of Reviewers and reviews for the NSF AISL, CREATIVE IT, and Cyberlearning panels. She consulted with the University of Pittsburgh’s Center for Healthy Environments and Communities (CHEC) on their Fractracker.org and Marcellus Citizen Stewardship project
[ PUBLICATIONS ]
Louw, M., Ansari, A., Bartley, C., Sanford, C. (2013) Stories in the Rock: A Design Case for an Explorable Image Viewer in Museums. International Journal of Designs for Learning, 4(2) 56-71.
Ansari, A., Louw, M., Bartley, C., Nourbakhsh, I. (2013) Exploring Gigapixel Technology for Science Communication and Learning in Museum Settings. In Proceedings of Museums and the Web 2013 (Portland, OR).
Louw, M. and Crowley, K. (2013) New Ways of Looking and Learning in Natural History Museums: The Use of Gigapixel Imaging to Bring Science and Publics Together. Curator: The Museum Journal, 56(1), 87–104. doi: 10.1111/cura.12009
DiSalvo, C., Louw, M., Holstius, D., Akin, A., Nourbakhsh, I. (2012) Toward a Public Rhetoric through Participatory Design: Critical Engagements and Creative Expression in the , Networks Project. Design Issues, 28(3), 48-61. Cambridge: MIT Press
Louw, M. (2012) Supporting Innovation in a Changing Media Landscape. Dimensions, 14(3), 22-25. Washington D.C.: Association of Science and Technology Centers.
DiSalvo, C., Louw, M. Coupland, J., Steiner M. (2009) Local issues, local uses: Tools for robotics and sensing in community contexts. In Proceedings of the Seventh ACM Conference on Creativity & Cognition (C&C ’09). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 245-254.
DiSalvo, C., Nourbakhsh, I., Holstius, D., Akin, A., Louw, M. (2008). The Neighborhood Nets Project: A case study of critical engagement and creative expression through participatory design. In Proceedings of the Tenth Anniversary Conference on Participatory Design 2008 (PDC ’08). Indiana University, Indianapolis, IN, USA, 41-50.
Louw, M. & Steiner, M. (2008). The Neighborhood Nets Project: Braddock. [Final Report] Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Center for Learning in Out-of-School Environments.
Berkovich, M., Date J., Keeler, R., Louw, M., O’ Toole, M. (2003). Discovery point: enhancing the museum experience with technology. In CHI ’03 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA ’03). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 994-995.
paper | poster | full report
Louw, M. (2003) Designing for Delight: The Role of Wonder, Discovery, Invention and Ingenuity in Museum Exhibit Design. Master’s Thesis.
Carnegie Mellon University. Thesis Advisors: Dr. Richard Buchanan, School of Design & Dr. Andreea Ritivoi, Dept. of English (Rhetoric)
Louw, M. (2003) Talking Trash: Designing a Recycling Experience for the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh. Master’s Thesis Project.
Carnegie Mellon University. Advisor: Dr. Jodi Forlizzi, Human Computer Interaction Institute [GUSH Funded] tech report | slides
Design Issues Associate Editor Book Reviews (2004-2005) MIT Press
19(1) | 19(2)
Studio Project: Time, Motion and Communication
Client: Carnegie Museum of Natural History Sky Theater Eomasis
Short selected for larger format screening at the 2002 International Planetarium Society meeting at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History and New Mexico Museum of Natural History’s DynaTheater.
Studio Project: Information and Interface Design
Client: National Aviary
Telepresent Robot Interface Design for RAVEN Distance Learning / Implemented (2003) information architecture | slides
[ PRODUCING CREDITS ]
WGBH/NOVA Garden of Eden (PBS 2001) Producer, Screenwriter
WGBH/NOVA Japan’s Secret Garden (PBS 2000) Producer
WGBH/NOVA Medieval Siege (PBS 2000) Co-producer
WGBH/NOVA Secrets of Lost Empires II (PBS 2000) Series associate producer
WGBH/NOVA Lost Tribes of Israel Broadcast Website Content writer, game developer