Fred Martin

I am Associate Dean for Teaching, Learning and Undergraduate Studies at UMass Lowell.

I am interested in a collection of themes around what I call “Engaging Computing”:

- Engaged computing means computational processes that are engaged with the world—think embedded systems. I’m creating computationally-active, physical-media design environments for an unusual set of users, including children, artists, and other non-engineers.
- Engaging computing means the design processes that people use when they are creating, building, and debugging. I’m specifically interested in environments that allow people to perform ultra-rapid prototyping, to exploring their ideas by implementing them immediately, getting feedback from seeing them in action, and then iterating, repeating the process. A negotiational process rather than a planned one.

I am also working on building novel tools and approaches for student to gain fluency with data.

We’ve built the iSENSE collaborative data visualization platform, and a build of MIT App Inventor with extensions for publishing data to iSENSE.

We are also working on CS Pathways, to integrate computer science into middle schools based on kids building apps for social good.