National Advisory Board

Nichole Pinkard, Ph.D.

Dr. Pinkard is an Associate Professor in the College of Computing and Digital Media at DePaul University in Chicago. She is the founder of Digital Youth Network, a hybrid digital literacy program that has supported hundreds of Chicago youth in developing 21st century media literacy skills. With support from the MacArthur Foundation and in collaboration with the Chicago Public Library, she helped found YOUmedia, a public learning space that immerses teens in a context of traditional media -- books -- to make and produce new media artifacts like music, games, videos, and virtual worlds. She is also co-creator of the iRemix Platform, a social learning platform that connects youth's learning opportunities in school, home, and beyond.

Dr. Pinkard is the recipient of a 2010 Common Sense Media Award for Outstanding Commitment to Creativity and Youth, the Jan Hawkins Award for Early Career Contributions to Humanistic Research and Scholarship in Learning Technologies, an NSF Early CAREER Fellowship.

She holds a B.S. in Computer Science from Stanford University, an M.S. in Computer Science from Northwestern University, and a Ph.D. in Learning Sciences from Northwestern University.