Our Team

Faculty & Staff
	HAL ABELSON Professor Abelson is well known for his work in undergraduate computing education and is a 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.
	MARISOL DIAZ Marisol Diaz has been the Project Manager for MIT App Inventor since 2013 and has been at MIT for over 20 years. Marisol has a background in management, sales, communications, customer service, event planning, and marketing. She worked for the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) for her first ten years at MIT.
	JEFF FREILICH Jeff trained as a mechanical engineer and has worked in the high-tech industry for over 25 years in roles ranging from R&D and engineering product management to partnerships and business development. He’s been at MIT for over ten years, managing portfolios of corporate relationships at MIT, but now focuses primarily on developing educational technology for the workforce, especially through online courses. He loves jazz, dogs, New England style India pale ales, though not necessarily in that order.
	DAVID KIM David is a software developer at MIT App Inventor. He is interested in the question, “What do we need to create so that kids can learn technology with ease?”. David is working on the topic of Conversational AI and building no-code platforms. Other than developing, David enjoys interacting and guiding students to fulfill their goals at App Inventor.
	SUSAN LANE Susan Rati Lane has been a software engineer since 1996, and she has followed an eclectic career through many industries and locations in the Western world. Her core expertise is in data modeling, but she's done some of almost everything. Career highlights include work in software support for brain imaging and clinical drug trials. She joined the MIT App Inventor team in 2018. She is passionate about writing software that improves lives.
	ROBERT PARKS Robert is a curriculum designer for the App Inventor team. He previously designed STEM resources for middle and high school students at the WGBH Educational Foundation and has worked as an adjunct STEM teacher in high schools. In his work as a journalist, Robert was an editor at Wired magazine and a contributor to Popular Science and Make magazines. His 2005 publication, Makers, was the first book about the maker movement. Robert is currently building a tennis-ball launcher from old treadmill parts.
	EVAN PATTON Evan is the Lead Software Engineer at MIT App Inventor. He aims to help App Inventor users realize the full potential of their app ideas through the development of new components and features to aid in collaboration, rich data collection and visualization, and efficiency. His research interests include real-time collaboration, Internet of Things, and applications of artificial intelligence to facilitate mobile app development. Evan also oversees the development of the MIT Punya project to extend App Inventor with semantic capabilities for healthcare and humanitarian causes. He holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
	CYNTHIA ROSENTHAL Cindy is the Administrative Assistant for the App Inventor Group. Before coming to CSAIL she worked in the libraries at MIT. She has also worked for a tax and audit firm, an architectural firm, and Suffolk University Law School. In her spare time, she takes pictures of houses and thinks about baking bread.
	JEFF SCHILLER Jeff is a Software Developer, Security Architect, and Network Manager. He has spent more than 25 years building systems that have to work 24/7 with minimal human intervention. As Area Director for Security with the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), he spent nine 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.
	SELIM TEZEL Selim is the Education Team Lead at the App Inventor project. He joined the team in 2018 as a curriculum developer. He is a former K-12 mathematics teacher who has taught overseas and in the US for 22 years, exploring intersections of technology and playful constructionist pedagogies in the classroom. Recently, he worked on the Beauty and Joy of Computing project as a curriculum designer at EDC (Education Development Center), which in collaboration with UC Berkeley and NYC Public Schools, aims to make computer science accessible and enjoyable for a diverse population of students. When not working, Selim enjoys playwriting and creating visual arts.
	ANGIE ZHOU Angie is an Education Specialist on the App Inventor team. She has extensive experience in curriculum design, teaching, and business development. Angie hopes to design fun and inspiring learning experiences and programs. Prior to joining the App Inventor team, Angie was running her company and teaching kids coding. Angie is very curious to learn about how everything works and the latest developments in business and technology. She loves learning things by watching videos. Angie graduated with a degree in engineering from the University of Cambridge.
Advisors
	ZAREEN CHOUDHURY Zareen Choudhury is the Communications Manager at the App Inventor Foundation. Zareen’s interests lie at the intersection of education technology, social good, and storytelling. She received a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from MIT, after which she worked as a software engineer at Samsara. She then went on to teach computer science at Inspirit AI, serve as Managing Editor of Children of 1971, and complete a nonprofit fellowship through YCore. Her role as Communications Manager at the App Inventor Foundation taps into her varied interests and experiences.
	JOSE DOMINGUEZ Jos is a software engineer with Red Hat, working on mobile platforms and services. He is also a researcher in education, focusing on learning practices in open source communities. After being part of the core team at MIT for almost two years, Jos continues to participate in the project by mentoring students in programs such as Facebook Open Academy and Google Summer of Code.
	MARK FRIEDMAN Mark Friedman is a Board Officer of the App Inventor Foundation. Mark is a co-founder of the App Inventor project and led its initial development at Google as tech lead and manager. He has supported the growth of App Inventor from a small research project to a global platform used by millions of learners and professional app developers alike, and he continues to be dedicated to its ongoing and expanding mission. Mark has been a technology leader at companies large (e.g., Google, Microsoft, Oracle) and small (e.g., Thunkable, Piper). He also serves as an adjunct professor of computer science at the University of San Francisco. His long-standing interests are to open up computer programming to everyone and to contribute to the uses of technology in education.
	KAREN LANG Karen has spent much of her career as an educator, focused on Computer Science education. She taught in the US and around the world – at high schools in New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, and in England. She also acted as technology coordinator at American international schools in Venezuela and Hungary. She taught Computer Science for eleven years at the Massachusetts Academy of Math and Science in Worcester, MA, USA, where her focus was to expose students to the possibilities of becoming technological innovators. Karen also worked as the Education and Business Development Manager for MIT App Inventor for five years, where she advocated for the use of App Inventor as a tool to enable people, young and old, to become active creators of technology. She currently develops curriculum for Technovation Girls to help girls around the globe solve problems in their communities using technology.
	NATALIE LAO Dr. Natalie Lao is the Executive Director of the App Inventor Foundation. As Executive Director of the App Inventor Foundation, Natalie’s mission is to empower anyone, anywhere, of any age, to create meaningful technologies that can transform their lives and the lives of people around them. She fell in love with App Inventor when she discovered it teaching high school computer science and saw its power to rapidly transform students from passive consumers of technology into active creators of it. She joined the MIT App Inventor lab as an undergraduate research assistant at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she received her B.S., M.Eng., and Ph.D. in EECS and AI. Her research on AI and CS education has been featured by MIT News and UNESCO.
	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.
	RALPH MORELLI Ralph Morelli is Professor of Computer Science at Trinity College in Hartford, CT, and was a Visiting Scientist at MIT's Center for Mobile Learning during the 2012-2013 academic year. He has been teaching Computing with Mobile Phones, an App Inventor-based CS course, since spring 2011. During the 2011-2012 academic year, the course was part of the CS Principles Projects Phase II Pilot experiment. Ralph is currently funded by the National Science Foundation CE21 Program to continue to develop and pilot his CS Principles course with Hartford Public School teachers.
	SHARON PERL Sharon has been a software engineer at Google for more than ten 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.
	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 a 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 www.appinventor.org (link is external) and blogs at appinventorblog.com (link is external).
Students
	ANAN AFRIDA Anan is a junior studying computer science and mathematics at Wesleyan University. She has been doing competitive programming since sixth grade and won medals in Informatics Olympiad and International Collegiate Programming Contest (ICPC). She is also a selected participant of Google TechWise Program. Anan is from Bangladesh where she worked in a local company, Cholpori, on designing an educational app platform. She is interested in human-computer interaction and plans to bring her problem-solving perspective to MIT App Inventor.
	EWURABA BUCKLE Ewuraba is a sophomore at MIT studying computer science (6-3). She joined the team in May 2024, and spent her summer assisting with the FutureMakers program as a mentor. This semester, she is joining the development team to help with enhancing the editing functionality for Aptly, a tool that leverages generative AI to empower users to create and modify App Inventor apps simply by providing text descriptions of their ideas. She will also be creating and editing a video highlighting the increased importance of robotics education in this day and age.
	JACKY CHEN Jacky is a junior studying computer science and math. He joined App Inventor because he enjoys both teaching and coding. With past experience in pedagogy, he works with the Ed Team to develop data science curriculums and teach different people to use App Inventor. He is currently working on the Incarcerated Veterans project to expand computer science and plans to progress to assist with the Expert Trainer's course.
	AVA MUFFOLETTO Ava is a junior majoring in Computer Science & Engineering and minoring in Mathematics. At MIT, she is a goalkeeper on the varsity women's soccer team and has worked with the MIT App Inventor group since her freshman year. With the App Inventor team, she has helped bring App Inventor to incarcerated veterans at the Maine State Prison and has developed uses of App Inventor in data science. She is passionate about making computer science accessible to all.
	PRERNA RAVI Prerna is an Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) PhD student at MIT CSAIL. Her research focuses on designing large-scale educational tools and learning experiences catered to students of diverse cognitive and physical abilities as well as underrepresented social contexts. She has conducted numerous workshops with high school students to introduce programming and mobile app development to them using AI-powered tools like MIT App Inventor. During her undergrad at Georgia Tech, she conducted ethnographic studies investigating the creative workarounds educators in marginalized communities devised during COVID-19 to navigate digital resource constraints. She also built educational games that empowered deaf kids (born to hearing parents) to learn sign language during their critical language learning age of 3-5 years. She has worked with non-profits globally to introduce AI curricula to underserved students by organizing participatory design workshops with their teachers and parents. She is currently investigating how Generative AI can be integrated into reflective scaffolding tools that strengthen students' self-regulated learning by providing structure and fostering creativity.
	ARIANNA SCOTT Arianna is a junior at MIT, double majoring in Computer Science, Economics, and Data Science (6-14) and Business Management (15-1). She joined the team in January 2023, contributing to both the education team — where she helped teach App Inventor curricula to residents of Maine State Prison — and the data science team, developing apps with data science components. Currently, she is focused on enhancing the editing functionality for Aptly, a tool that leverages generative AI to empower users to create and modify App Inventor apps simply by providing text descriptions of their ideas.
	ISABELA SANCHEZ TAIPE Bela is a junior at Wellesley College, studying a double major in Computer Science and Education. At 13 years old, she started programming with App Inventor. The experience of designing and developing her first app motivated her to create technology to improve the lives of her community — low-income Peruvian youth with amazing talent but a lack of opportunities. In the spring of 2023, she joined the App Inventor Data Science team and is working on the development, design, and translation of the App Inventor Data Science tutorials/curriculum for the Spanish-speaking community. Bela is passionate about creating safe spaces for mutual learning for Latinx youth in STEM.
	EMMA WANG Emma is a sophomore at MIT studying computer science (6-3) and math (18). She is a midfielder on the women's soccer team and has worked with App Inventor since April 2024. Emma spent her summer assisting the FutureMakers program as a mentor and is now enhancing the editing functionality for Aptly, a tool that leverages generative AI to empower users to create and modify App Inventor apps simply by describing their app ideas in natural language.
	KIDUS YOHANNES Kidus is a senior at MIT from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, majoring in Artificial Intelligence and Decision Making (6-4) and minoring in Finance (15-3). Kidus is passionate about using generative AI to make the education experience more personalized, enjoyable, and accessible to all. He believes that all children, no matter their race, gender, or socio-economic status, deserve the opportunity for quality education. Kidus joined the App Inventor Team in Spring 2024 as part of the development team, where he incorporated data science components such as a linear regression and anomaly detection block into the iOS application of App Inventor. He is currently working on the Aptly team, where he is fine-tuning different LLMs to find the most accurate, cost-effective, and time-efficient model for App Inventor's new chatbot called Aptly.
	JOYCE YUAN Joyce is a Masters student at MIT concentrating in Artificial Intelligence; as an undergrad she majored in Computer Science (6-3) and Math (18), and concentrated in Education. Following her passion to innovate in the EdTech space, Joyce joined App Inventor her senior year. Joyce is very interested in how technology and AI especially can lower the barrier of entry to education; her dream is to help make learning fun for kids. Joyce is currently working on small language models that will enable App Inventor users to interface with the platform through speech.
	JENNET ZAMANOVA Jennet is a junior studying 6-3 (Computer Science and Engineering). She joined the App Inventor Education team in January 2023. She currently works on improving the User Interface of App Inventor and is a TA for the Incarcerated Veterans Project. She is passionate about creating tools that help her community.
	ABRIANNA ZHANG Abrianna is a freshman studying Computer Science and Mathematics at MIT. After seeing the App Inventor project among the Experiential Learning Opportunities (ELOs) at MIT, her interest was piqued due its imaginative approach to pedagogy. With a background in programming and teaching, she joined the team in September 2024 and is currently working on refining and providing feedback on the app’s central features. She is excited about making education more accessible through creativity.
	CATHERINE ZHU Catherine is a sophomore at MIT studying Computer Science. She joined the App Inventor team in January 2024 and is currently working with the Aptly team to improve LLM results and develop new features to make mobile app development even more accessible.
Alumni
2024	Ashley Granquist Angel Iniego Maura Kelleher Evelyn Cai Matthew Quispe Robin Liu Gisella Kakoti
2023	Hanya Elhashemy Viktoriya Tabunshchyk Mingyan (Claire) Tian
2022	Meg Allen Elizabeth Harkavy Diana Hernandez Nghi Nguyen Nicole Pang Jessica Van Brummelen Sarah Zhang
2021	Jean Billa Dev Chheda Nisarg Dharia Murielle Dunand Tommy Heng Daniel Kim Mahmoud Khalifa Jimin Lee Annie Liu Noah Raby Tiffany Tran Tiffany Trinh Guillermo Vasquez Lilian Wang Joy Yu Michelle Zhao Jessica Zhu
2020	Nikhil Bhatia Natalie Lao Kevin Weng Catherine Yeo
2019	Obada Alkhatib Kelsey Chan Nichole Clarke Kendall Garner Danny Tang Mary Zhong Kevin Zhu
2018	Luis Gutierrez Kathryn Hendrickson Meredith Julian Skyler Kaufman Helen Li Lucy Li Tammam Mustafa Katherine Prutz Lisa Ruan Linda Tang Katherine Wang Wen Xi Joy Yu Erica Yuen
2017	Graeme Campbell Xinyue Deng Emily Giurleo Zoe Gong Divya Gopinath Arjun Gupta Jane Im Bennett Nestok Jennifer Switzer
2016	Kristin Asmus Aubrey Colter Tiffany Le Aaron Suarez Benji Xie
2015	Tricia Divita Keith Galli Weihua Li Vedha Sayyaparaju Isra Shabir
2014	Joanie Weaver
2013	Arun Saigal Erin Davis Emily Erdman
2012	Miren Bamforth Karishma Chadha Violeta Ilieva Maki Kato Logan Mercer Jason Wu
2011	Kate Feeney Katie Lavery Vance Turnewitsch