"Hi! I’m Beck. I am a designer and researcher at the Center for Digital Thriving. Right now, I’m focusing on how AI is changing schools, and I’m working with students and educators to co-design resources that help us all have more digital agency in how AI fits into our lives and learning."
PZ Work
A Project Zero principal investigator and one of the co-founders of the Center for Digital Thriving—a research and innovation center at PZ that bridges the gap between research on teens and screens and classroom practice—uses participatory design methods with learners and educators to create resources and frameworks that help navigate technologies like social media and generative AI in thoughtful and values-aligned ways. Some of her favorite examples of this are:
At Project Zero, Beck serves on the Leadership Team, attends Project Zero Classroom most summers, and co-teaches the J-term course "T510A: Social Media, Generative AI, and Youth Well-Being: Learning and Teaching for Digital Thriving."
Beyond PZ
Beck graduated with her Ph.D. in Information Science at the University of Washington. Before returning to school, she was an experience designer in science museums. She was formally trained as a designer at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She spent her career before returning to academia helping museums, libraries, and non-profits embrace risk-taking, creativity, and change through technology and personal space-making. Her work from that time was mentioned in The New York Times, National Public Radio, Scientific American, and several books and blogs.
Where to Find Beck
You can learn more about Beck at work and play at becktench.com. She also teaches at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.
Beck's PZ Pick
"We’re all having to navigate the gray areas of AI use. This CDT tool helps us do so together: Align on the Line: A framework for making ethical lines visible."