Elizabeth Bonsignore

•  May 2012 
  Recipient - ACM SIGCHI Doctoral Consortium award View website
•  Sep 2009 
  Alternate Reality Games (ARGs) in the Service of Education & Design (NSF, student investigator) View website

Elizabeth Bonsignore is a doctoral candidate in the iSchool at the University of Maryland (College of Information Studies). Her research interests include the design and use of collaborative technologies that promote literacy practice, creative expression, and shared storytelling, whether in formal education or informal contexts (museum, library, home). Specific work includes the empirical analysis of the use of mobile storytelling applications at home and in school (StoryKit), online communities for educators (Classroom2.0), social network analysis (NodeXL), social learning sites for children (National Park Services’ WebRangers), and the design of Alternate Reality Games as platforms for participatory learning and design (arcanegalleryofgadgetry.org). These efforts include close collaboration with Kidsteam, a participatory design research team at the Human-Computer Interaction Lab.
Her dissertation, projected for completion in fall 2013, focuses on the design of Alternate Reality Games (ARGs) as platforms for collaborative learning and information literacy practice.

Prior to focusing on academia as a doctoral student at the University of Maryland, Elizabeth served as a senior scientist in Special Operations for the US Department of Defense (1997-2008). She also served in the United States Navy and Naval Reserve as a special duty cryptology officer for 20 years, which included one year as a computer science instructor at the US Naval Academy.