Amy Susan Bruckman (born 1965) is a

professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other tertiary education, post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin ...

at the

Georgia Institute of Technology The Georgia Institute of Technology (commonly referred to as Georgia Tech, GT, and simply Tech or the Institute) is a public university, public research university and Institute of technology (United States), institute of technology in Atlanta, ...

affiliated with the School of Interactive Computing and the GVU Center. She is best known for her pioneering research in the fields of online communities and the learning sciences. In 1999, she was selected as one of ''

MIT Technology Review ''MIT Technology Review'' is a bimonthly magazine wholly owned by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It was founded in 1899 as ''The Technology Review'', and was re-launched without "''The''" in its name on April 23, 1998, under then pu ...

'''s TR100 awardees, honoring 100 remarkable innovators under the age of 35.

Early life and education

Amy S. Bruckman was born in

New York, New York New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on New York Harbor, one of the world's largest natural harb ...

. She attended the Horace Mann School, an Ivy Preparatory School in New York City, graduating in 1983. Following that, Bruckman attended

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

for her undergraduate studies, earning a Bachelor of Arts degree in

physics Physics is the scientific study of matter, its Elementary particle, fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge whi ...

in 1987. She received a

master's degree A master's degree (from Latin ) is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities or colleges upon completion of a course of study demonstrating mastery or a high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional prac ...

in 1991 from the Interactive Cinema Group at the

MIT Media Lab The MIT Media Lab is a research laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, growing out of MIT's Architecture Machine Group in the MIT School of Architecture and Planning, School of Architecture. Its research does not restrict to fi ...

, where she was advised by Glorianna Davenport. Her master's

thesis A thesis (: theses), or dissertation (abbreviated diss.), is a document submitted in support of candidature for an academic degree or professional qualification presenting the author's research and findings.International Standard ISO 7144: D ...

described the Electronic Scrapbook, an intelligent

home video Home video is recorded media sold or Video rental shop, rented for home viewing. The term originates from the VHS and Betamax era, when the predominant medium was videotapes, but has carried over to optical disc formats such as DVD and Blu-ray. ...

editing system. Bruckman went on to pursue a Ph.D. at the Media Lab in

Mitchel Resnick Mitchel Resnick (born June 12, 1956) is an American computer scientist. He is the LEGO Papert Professor of Learning Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Media Lab, and is the founder of Scratch. , Resnick serves as head ...

Epistemology Epistemology is the branch of philosophy that examines the nature, origin, and limits of knowledge. Also called "the theory of knowledge", it explores different types of knowledge, such as propositional knowledge about facts, practical knowle ...

and Learning Group. On January 20, 1993, Bruckman established '' MediaMOO'', an

online community An online community, also called an internet community or web community, is a community whose members engage in computer-mediated communication primarily via the Internet. Members of the community usually share common interests. For many, on ...

for new media researchers and educators. The community, managed chiefly by Bruckman, developed a significant following for its time, eventually closing down seven years later. During this time, Bruckman also worked as a research assistant for Sherry Turkle on Turkle's influential book, '' Life on the Screen'' (1997). For her dissertation work, Bruckman developed '' MOOSE Crossing'', a

MOO A MOO ("Multi-user dungeon, MUD, object-oriented") is a text-based online virtual reality system to which multiple users (players) are connected at the same time. The term MOO is used in two distinct, but related, senses. One is to refer to th ...

-based constructionist learning environment in which young children could learn

computer programming Computer programming or coding is the composition of sequences of instructions, called computer program, programs, that computers can follow to perform tasks. It involves designing and implementing algorithms, step-by-step specifications of proc ...

skills while building virtual objects.

Georgia Tech

Upon her graduation from MIT in 1997, Bruckman accepted a position as an assistant

at the

College of Computing. As a new Georgia Tech faculty member, Bruckman founded the Electronic Learning Communities (ELC) Lab and began setting up a program of research incorporating her interests in online communities and constructionist learning. She founded the Undergraduate Research Opportunities in Computing (UROC) program at Georgia Tech in 1998, modeling it after MIT's

UROP An Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program provides funding and/or credit to undergraduate students who volunteer for faculty-mentored research projects pertaining to all academic disciplines. Participating universities Universities involved ...

. In 1999, Bruckman's research was supported by a prestigious grant awarded by the

National Science Foundation The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) is an Independent agencies of the United States government#Examples of independent agencies, independent agency of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government that su ...

's Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) program. That same year, she was selected as one of ''

Technology Review ''MIT Technology Review'' is a bimonthly magazine wholly owned by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It was founded in 1899 as ''The Technology Review'', and was re-launched without "''The''" in its name on April 23, 1998, under then pu ...

'''s 100 remarkable innovators under the age of 35. Her work at this time was described as "the most notable

research in education." On July 22, 1999, Bruckman and graduate student Joshua Berman released The Turing Game, a multiplayer

online game An online game is a video game that is either partially or primarily played through the Internet or any other computer network available. Online games are ubiquitous on modern gaming platforms, including PCs, consoles and mobile devices, a ...

inspired by the

Turing test The Turing test, originally called the imitation game by Alan Turing in 1949,. Turing wrote about the ‘imitation game’ centrally and extensively throughout his 1950 text, but apparently retired the term thereafter. He referred to ‘ iste ...

that challenged players to explore issues of

online identity Internet identity (IID), also online identity, online personality, online persona or internet persona, is a social identity that an Internet user establishes in online communities and websites. It may also be an actively constructed presentatio ...

. The game received national attention and was played by over 11,000 people from 81 countries and all seven continents. In 2003, Bruckman received

tenure Tenure is a type of academic appointment that protects its holder from being fired or laid off except for cause, or under extraordinary circumstances such as financial exigency or program discontinuation. Academic tenure originated in the United ...

and was promoted to the position of associate professor. In 2012, she was made a full professor. She was the interim chair of the School of Interactive Computing from July 2017 until December. Bruckman currently directs the ELC Lab, the UROC program, and the

Web Science Web science is an emerging interdisciplinary field concerned with the study of large-scale socio-technical systems, particularly the World Wide Web. It considers the relationship between people and technology, the ways that society and technolo ...

initiative at Georgia Tech. She has published dozens of scholarly articles in

peer-reviewed Peer review is the evaluation of work by one or more people with similar competencies as the producers of the work ( peers). It functions as a form of self-regulation by qualified members of a profession within the relevant field. Peer review ...

journals and has given invited presentations at high-profile

academic conference An academic conference or scientific conference (also congress, symposium, workshop, or meeting) is an Convention (meeting), event for researchers (not necessarily academics) to present and discuss their scholarly work. Together with academic jou ...

s such as ICLS and CHI. Bruckman's most recent work, often done in conjunction with

graduate student Postgraduate education, graduate education, or graduate school consists of Academic degree, academic or professional degrees, certificates, diplomas, or other qualifications usually pursued by higher education, post-secondary students who have ...

s she advises, has dealt with topics in

information ethics Information ethics has been defined as "the branch of ethics that focuses on the relationship between the creation, organization, dissemination, and use of information, and the ethical standards and moral codes governing human conduct in society" ...

, game studies, social media use,

computer-supported collaboration Computer-supported collaboration research focuses on technology that affects groups, organizations, communities and societies, e.g., voice mail and text chat. It grew from cooperative work study of supporting people's work activities and working r ...

and

wiki A wiki ( ) is a form of hypertext publication on the internet which is collaboratively edited and managed by its audience directly through a web browser. A typical wiki contains multiple pages that can either be edited by the public or l ...

s, and

women in computing Women in computing were among the first programmers in the early 20th century, and contributed substantially to the industry. As technology and practices altered, the role of women as programmers has changed, and the recorded history of the fi ...

. Her book ''Should You Believe Wikipedia?'' was published in 2022.

Professional community leadership

Bruckman has taken on many leadership roles in service to her professional community, notably for the ACM Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing (CSCW) conference. She was the General Co-chair for the 2013 conference and subsequently served as Chair of the CSCW Steering Committee.

Recognition

In 2002, the

American Educational Research Association The American Educational Research Association (AERA, pronounced "A-E-R-A") is a professional organization representing education researchers in the United States and around the world. AERA's mission is to advance knowledge about education and ...

presented Bruckman with the Jan Hawkins Award for Early Career Contributions to Humanistic Research and Scholarship in Learning Technologies. She was elected to the CHI Academy in 2018. She was also elected as an

ACM Fellow ACM Fellowship is an award and fellowship that recognises outstanding members of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). The title of ACM Fellow A fellow is a title and form of address for distinguished, learned, or skilled individuals ...

in 2018 for "contributions to collaborative computing and foundational work in Internet research ethics".

References

External links