Meet the MIT App Inventor Team

Faculty & Staff

Hal Abelson Professor Abelson is well known for his work in undergraduate computing education and co-author of the classic text Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs (MIT Press, 1985, 1996). He is a leader in the global movement for Open Educational Resources and a founding board member of the Free Software Foundation and Creative Commons. He also co-directs of MIT's Council on Educational Technology.	Mark Friedman Mark works at Google and led the original App Inventor project there. He has long-standing interests in programming languages and their environments and in the uses of technology in education. Mark is an occasional contributor to the App Inventor project at MIT -where he is mostly a troublemaker - and is an advisor to the MIT Center for Mobile Learning.
Liz Looney Liz is a software engineer at Google and worked on the original App Inventor team there. She participated in the Robotics Task Force at Google, leading the development of the LEGO MINDSTORMS components in App Inventor. She is a co-author of App Inventor (O'Reilly 2011) with David Wolber, Hal Abelson, and Ellen Spertus. Liz has over 25 years of software engineering experience, working at Borland, Oracle, and Google, after earning a bachelor's degree in Computer Science from The University of New Hampshire.	Andrew McKinney McKinney has over 20 years of experience developing educational technology, first at Harvard and in various other capacities at MIT prior to joining CML. The common thread he brings -- even more than his rich experience in leading development of educational technology projects -- is a passion for helping to improve the effectiveness and productivity of teaching and learning through the usage of technology.
Sharon Perl Sharon has been a software engineer at Google for more than 10 years, and has worked on App Inventor since the project's inception. Before App Inventor she worked on various systems infrastructure projects at Google, and did systems research at DEC's Systems Research Center (remember DEC?!). She did her graduate work at MIT, and undergrad at the University of Pennsylvania, all in Computer Science.	Shaileen Pokress Pokress develops curriculum and manages academic outreach for CML's App Inventor project. In prior work, she developed and facilitated online communities of practice for educators engaged in K-12 math and science reform. As a former software engineer with degrees in education and computer science, Shay's efforts to make computing accessible to everyone reflect her personal history.
Jeff Schiller Jeff is a Software Developer, Security Architect and Network Manager. He has spent more then 25 years building systems that have to work 24x7 with minimal human intervention. As Area Director for Security with the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) he spent 9 years shepherding the development of critical Internet security technology including IP layer encryption, E-mail encryption and Transport Layer Security (https). He brings his expertise in building stable scalable systems to MIT App Inventor.	Josh Sheldon Sheldon is an educational technologist who has worked for more than 15 years at the intersection of science, technology, and learning. A former middle and high school teacher, he has worked for a Nobel Peace Prize winning human rights organization and on award-winning early online communities for education. He values playfulness in almost everything, and is in fact quite serious about it.
Ellen Spertus Professor Ellen Spertus was a member of the original App Inventor team at Google, where she is a senior research scientist, and is a professor of computer science at Mills College. For more than 20 years, she has worked toward increasing the number of girls and women in computer science, in addition to doing research in computer architecture, information retrieval, recommender systems, and online communities. She is a co-author of App Inventor (O'Reilly 2011) with David Wolber, Hal Abelson, and Liz Looney.	Franklyn Turbak Franklyn (Lyn) Turbak is a professor of computer science at Wellesley College. He is co-author of the book Design Concepts in Programming Languages (MIT Press, 2008) and leads the TinkerBlocks project, whose goal is to create more expressive blocks programming languages. Lyn is excited by how App Inventor is democratizing programming.
David Wolber David is a professor of computer science at the University of San Francisco. He has taught App Inventor to non-majors since the Google pilot program in 2009. He is co-author of "App Inventor: Create your own Android Apps" (O'Reilly 2010) and author of many of the advanced tutorials on the App Inventor site. He runs the site appinventor.org and blogs at appinventorblog.com.

Students

Miren Bamforth Miren is a rising sophomore at MIT and is studying Computer Science. She has been working on App Inventor since January 2012, helping with the transition from Google and developing a new component. During summer 2012, she will be working primarily on curriculum development.	Karishma Chadha Karishma Chadha is an undergraduate student at Wellesley College in the Class of 2014. She is majoring in Computer Science and minoring in Mathematics. She has been working with Professor Franklyn Turbak since January 2012 on a variety of projects involving blocks programming languages in an attempt to make them more expressive and intuitive.
Erin Davis A rising sophomore at Wellesley College, Erin is studying Math and Computer Science. She is working with professor Lyn Turbak on developing the future of blocks based programming.	José Domínguez José is a part-time Ph.D. student at Trinity College Dublin in Ireland. His research focuses on applying technology and informal learning practices to third level Computer Science education. He is joining the App Inventor team as a developer through the Google Summer of Code programme.
Emily Erdman Emily is an undergraduate at Wellesley College studying Computer Science and Neuroscience. She has been working with Professor Lyn Turbak on developing TurtleBlocks, a block language used to create tangible user artifacts.	Kate Feeney Feeney is a graduate student at Mills College studying Interdisciplinary Computer Science. Her thesis work has focused on designing, implementing and documenting new features for App Inventor. Feeney also teaches two computer programming classes to high school students; one using App Inventor and the other using Scheme.
Violeta Ilieva Violeta is a student in Princeton University majoring in Computer Science and pursuing a certificate in Robotics and Intelligent Systems. She is taking part in Google Summer of Code 2012 and her project is to add a Google Maps component to the App Inventor.	Maki Kato Maki recently graduated from Wellesley College with a B.A. in psychology with honors. Her work focuses on designing curricula and creating new learning activities that are interactive and fun. She is passionate about making computer science more accessible and appealing to girls and hopes to build online communities that support girls in the computing field.
Katie Laverty Katie is a rising sophomore at MIT. She's pursuing a degree in Electrical Engineering & Computer Science.	Weihua Li Wei is a rising junior at MIT and is studying Computer Science and Economics. He has been working on the MIT App Inventor team since December 2011. For summer 2012, he will be working on the build server.
Logan Mercer Logan is a rising sophomore at MIT studying Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. He has been an avid App Inventor user since its release in 2010 and started working on the project in January of 2012. He will spend summer 2012 working to remove that pesky USB cable and make development wireless.	Johanna Okerlund Johanna is studying computer science and math at Wellesley College. She just finished her second year there and is spending the summer of 2012 working with Lyn Turbak to develop and explore new possibilities for block languages.
Arun Saigal Arun is a rising senior at MIT, studying electrical engineering computer science. He has been working on App Inventor since the fall of 2010, both as a developer and as a teacher. Arun is very passionate about using technology to improve and increase access to high quality education, and has been involved in multiple initiatives in both America and India doing just that.	Vance Turnewitsch Turnewitsch is a junior at Marietta College and is majoring in physics and information systems. He hopes to attend graduate school to study software engineering or materials science. His interests in programming are focused on mobile development, artificial intelligence, and robotics. Vance has published one piece of software: Quiz Buddy.
Jason Wu Jason is a rising sophomore at MIT and he is studying mathematics and computer science. He has been working in the MIT App Inventor team since March 2012. He will focus on the development side of App Inventor for summer 2012.