News
YW Tech Lab Project: The AUX
7/1/2023
Completed the design and development of a new website for The AUX through the YW Tech Lab, led by a studio-based student web development team.
NSF BRAID Grant Awarded
9/1/2023
Serving as a Co-PI on an NSF BRAID grant supporting research on neuromorphic systems and their broader societal and ethical impacts, with undergraduate students contributing to research and public-facing work.
YW Tech Lab Project: Answer the Moment
8/1/2022
Completed the first YW Tech Lab website, Answer the Moment, designed and built by a student web development team.
Joining UNC Asheville
7/1/2022
Joined the UNC Asheville Computer Science Department as an Assistant Professor, teaching and mentoring students in software engineering, web development, and computing ethics.
Racial Equity & Community Partnership Grant Recipient
5/27/2022
Received a 2022 Racial Equity & Community Partnership Grant to support and expand the YW Tech Lab web design apprenticeship program.
I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of North Carolina Asheville. As an educator, I develop and teach courses in human-computer interaction, web development, software engineering, introductory programming, and computing and data ethics. As a researcher, I design and study educational interventions that aim to broaden participation in computing, and help emerging computer scientists recognize and engage with the societal and ethical implications of their work. I also build computational tools that support civic advocacy and citizen science initiatives.
Prior to joining UNCA, I was an Assistant Professor of Instruction at Northwestern University, where I co-directed the TREE Lab with Sepehr Vakil. My Ph.D. is from the UC Berkeley School of Information, where I was advised by Tapan Parikh, and worked with Kris Gutiérrez, Paul Duguid, and Coye Cheshire. Before academia, I worked as a software designer/developer, building data and communication systems to support public accountability for city and regional development projects.
Teaching & Course Design
UNC Asheville
A survey of the rapidly evolving role of artificial intelligence (AI) in society. The course examines the values, design choices and tradeoffs that AI-powered systems make across a range of contexts, situations, and stakeholders. For undergraduate students (all majors).
| 2024-2025 | Fall |
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The study of data structures, some of the efficient algorithms that use them, and how to represent and implement them in Java. For CS majors and minors.
| 2022-2023 | Fall |
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A studio-based software development course where students work as a development team building software for a client, operating under technical, organizational, and time constraints. The course focuses on learning tools and techniques while delivering value to clients by understanding their needs, navigating constraints, and making informed tradeoffs throughout the development process.
| 2025-2026 | Spring (with Prof. Kevin Sanft) |
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Through this course, students learn how to select between different visual displays of information, assess the usability and effectiveness of data interfaces, communicate data insights through clear, compelling narratives, and understand the possibilities and challenges of using interactive data tools to inform public planning.
| 2025-2026 | Fall |
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Northwestern University
Introduction to the fundamental constructs of computer programming (using Python). Students author animations, games, and data-driven interfaces while exploring various computational principles. For undergraduates (all majors).
Introduction to the methods, tools, and technologies for doing "full stack" web development, including HTML, CSS, and Javascript, web architecture, and web frameworks (server-side and client-side). For CS undergraduate and master's students.
An exploration of the benefits and harms (individual, cultural, political) of computing technologies; and an examination of the values, ideologies, and contexts through which computing technologies emerge. For undergraduate and master's students.
Berkeley City College
Explores front-end, interactive programming concepts using JavaScript. This including working with HTML5 browser APIs (audio, canvas), working with front-end frameworks (e.g., p5.js, Angular, React), and working with REST APIs from third-party providers.
| 2017-2018 | Fall (Web App Focus with Ricky Holtz) |
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| 2016-2017 | Fall (Animation focus) |
An introduction to Web design with HTML, CSS, and WordPress for community college students.
| 2016-2017 | Summer |
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UC Berkeley - School of Information
An introduction to the fundamentals of data structures and data analysis (in Python) for Master's students.
| 2012-2013 | Spring (Graduate Teaching Assistant) |
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| 2013-2014 | Summer (Lecturer) |
REALM Charter High School
High School Sociology course designed to help tenth grade students learn about their communities using design and data analysis methods (qualitative and quantitative).
| 2013-2014 | Spring (with Sepehr Vakil and Tapan Parikh) |
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Scholarship
Refereed Journals, Conference Proceedings, & Workshops
- 2026Lanouette, K., & Van Wart, S.J. (2026). Digging Deeper into Schoolyards and Data: An elementary ecology unit to lift up children’s local knowledge. Science and Children, 63, 53-64. https://doi.org/10.1080/00368148.2025.2586296
- 2025Lanouette, K., Van Wart, S.J., & Parikh, T.S. (2025). Participatory Digital Mapping, Dynamic Data and Children's Emergent Science Argumentation about Local Socio-Ecological Systems. Journal of Science Education and Technology, 34, 215-235. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10956-024-10152-6
- 2024Lanouette, K., Van Wart, S.J., & Parikh, T.S (2024). Participatory Digital Mapping, Dynamic Data, and Children's Science Argumentation: Possibilities in Elementary Science Ecology Studies. Roundtable session presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association (AERA). Philadelphia, PA.
- 2023Chávez, V. & Van Wart, S.J. (2023, June 10-15). “Accessibility is important to everybody”: Unpacking Students’ Understanding about Accessibility. Proceedings of the International Society of the Learning Sciences (ISLS). Montréal, CA.
- Van Wart, S.J., Vakil, S., & araujo melo, n. (2023). Developing Artificial Intelligence Literacy by Examining the Politics of Internet Platforms. In Zheng et al. (chairs), Artificial Intelligence in Education: Potentials and Challenges in Ethics, Data Privacy, and Pedagogy [Symposium]. Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association (AERA). Chicago, IL.
- 2022araujo melo, n., Reith, A., Nober, B., Van Wart, S.J., & Vakil, S. (2022). “Google got yo’ life”: Opening Portals for Ethical Sensemaking with Relational Design. Workshop paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association (AERA). San Diego, CA.
- 2021(in alphabetical order) araujo melo, n., Bhadriraju, S., Elliot, S., Logan, C., Mehta, B., Reith, A., Vakil, S., Van Wart, S., Voelkel, G., Watson Jr., C., Wetoska, N., & Williams, T. (7-30 July 2021). Bringing Politics and Power into Computing Education: Young People’s Race, Power, and Technology Project. Workshop paper presented at the Connected Learning Summit. Online.
- 2020Van Wart, S.J., Lanouette, K., Parikh, T.S. (2020). Scripts and counterscripts in community-based data science: Participatory digital mapping and the pursuit of a third space. Journal of the Learning Sciences. https://doi.org/10.1080/10508406.2019.1693378
- Irgens, G. A., Simon, K., Wise, A., Philip, T., Olivares, M. C., Van Wart, S.J., … & Kahn, J. (21-23 July, 2020). Data Literacies and Social Justice: Exploring Critical Data Literacies through Sociocultural Perspectives. Workshop paper presented during the 14th International Conference of the Learning Sciences, Vol. 1, pp. 406–413. Nashville, TN.https://doi.dx.org/10.22318/icls2020.406
- Matuk, C., Yoon, S., Polman, J., Barton, J., Bulalacao, N. M., Cafaro, F., & … Woods, P. (21-23 July, 2020). Data Literacy for Social Justice. Workshop paper presented during the 14th International Conference of the Learning Sciences, Vol. 1, pp. 343–349. Nashville, TN.https://doi.dx.org/10.22318/icls2020.343
- 2019Lanouette, K., Van Wart, S.J. (2019). Moving Between Experience, Data and Explanation: The Role of Participatory GIS Maps in Elementary Science Sensemaking. Proceedings of Computer Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL), pp. 553–556. Lyon, FR.
- 2016Lanouette, K., Van Wart, S.J., & Parikh, T.S. (2016). Supporting elementary students' learning about ecological systems through data modeling and interactive mapping in local contexts. Proceedings of the International Conference of the Learning Sciences (ICLS), Vol. 1, pp. 570–577. Singapore.
- Van Wart, S.J., Lanouette, K., & Parikh, T.S. (2016). Local Ground: Supporting local, data-driven inquiry with youth. Poster Session Presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association (AERA). Washington, D.C..
- 2015Van Wart, S.J. (2015). Computer science meets social studies: Embedding CS in the study of locally grounded civic issues. Proceedings of the Eleventh Annual International Conference on International Computing Education Research (ICER), 281-282. Omaha, NE.https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2787622.2787751
- 2014Van Wart, S.J., Vakil, S., & Parikh, T.S. (2014). Apps for social justice: Motivating computer science learning with design and real-world problem solving. Proceedings of the Conference on Innovation & Technology in Computer Science Education (ITiCSE), 123–128. Uppsala, SE.https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2591708.2591751
- Van Wart, S.J. & Parikh, T.S. (2014). Local Ground: A Toolkit Supporting Metarepresentational Competence in Data Science.. Poster at the International Conference of the Learning Sciences (ICLS), 1589-1590. Boulder, CO.
- 2013Van Wart, S.J. & Parikh, T.S. (2013). Increasing Youth and Community Agency in GIS. Paper Presented at the Geographic Human-Computer Interaction (GeoHCI) Workshop at SIGCHI, 1-3. Paris, FR.
- 2010Van Wart, S.J., Tsai, K.J., & Parikh, T.S. (2010). Local Ground: A Paper-Based Toolkit for Documenting Local Geo-spatial Knowledge. Proceedings of the First ACM Symposium on Computing for Development (ACMDEV), 123–128. Egham, UK.https://doi.org/10.1145/1926180.1926194
Other Publications
- 2020Soep, E., Lee, C., Van Wart, S.J., Parikh, T.S. (2020). Code for What?. In Jenkins, H., Peters-Lazaro, G., & Shresthova S. (Eds.), Popular Culture and the Civic Imagination: Case Studies of Creative Social Change (89-99).
- 2019Van Wart, S.J. (2019). In search of a "fair explanation": Helping young people to consider the possibilities, limitations, and risks of computer- and data-mediated systems. Doctoral Dissertation.
- 2011Koy, K., Van Wart, S.J., Galey, B., O'Connor, M., & Kelly, M. (March 2011). Cal-Adapt: Bringing global climate change data to a local application. PE&RS, Photogrammetric Engineering & Remote Sensing, 77 (6), 546-550.
Contact
To contact me, please email me at svanwart@unca.edu.