Elisabeth Gee

Elisabeth R. Gee (formerly Hayes) is the Delbert and Jewell Lewis Chair in reading and literacy, professor in Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College and affiliate faculty in the Department of English. She was a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (1990-2007) where she chaired the English education program (2001-2006), and the graduate program in Continuing and Adult Education (2000-2003) prior to joining the ASU faculty. Professor Gee was on the faculty at Syracuse University (1987-1990) and Rutgers University (1986-87), where she earned her doctorate. She was a founding member of the Games, Learning and Society research collective at UW-Madison.

Professor Gee is the current co-director of the Play2Connect project, focusing on intergenerational game play as a means of promoting learning and positive family relationships. Her recent research includes an investigation of game design as a means of promoting design thinking among children and families and a study of Mexican-American families' use of digital media for learning. Professor Gee was named a 2011 White House Champion of Change for her work on using games and digital media to engage girls in computing. She has authored and edited numerous publications, most recently including the books Children and Families in the Digital Age: Learning Together in a Media Saturated Culture (2018, Routledge, co-edited with L. Takeuchi and E. Wartella), Families at play:  Connecting and Learning through Video Games (2018, MIT Press, coauthored with S. Siyahhan), Re-Imagining Multiliteracies: 20 Years After the New London Group (2017, Teachers College Press, co-edited with F. Serafini), Learning in Video Game Affinity Spaces (2012, Peter Lang, co-edited with S. Duncan), and Language and Learning in the Digital Age (2011, Routledge, coauthored with J. Gee).

Professor Gee's work has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, and the Annie E. Casey Foundation. She is co-PI on the National Science Foundation-funded "Play in the Making" project, that aims to develop an empirically-based teaching and learning model for broadening participation of girls, minority, and low-income middle school students in STEM and Making in schools and libraries. Her team is collaborating with middle school teachers and librarians to create and test a series of design challenges that engage middle school students in addressing personally and socially significant real-world problems through game making in Maker spaces. The research objectives of this project include developing a better understanding of the development of design thinking through game design and how mentors can play a role in promoting Making and design thinking.