Diane is passionate about transforming education within existing traditional schools, helping the students and teachers of today. She supports teachers in becoming facilitators of student-centered hands-on learning, and creating a school culture of experimentation, collaboration, self-direction, and joy in learning.
At MIT Diane develops and leads workshops for teachers integrating Maker/STEM into their regular curriculum and in using Makerspaces to engage and empower students. She maintains the Edgerton Center Student Project Lab / Makerspace for the MIT community and regularly supervises undergraduate students on projects that support the K12 MakerLab initiative and personal research. Diane also co-teaches a popular freshman advising seminar entitled “Engineering, Art, and Science."
Working as a product design consultant at several engineering companies, Diane honed her skills in creative problem solving, project management, and fabrication. She went into education as a career after serving as an instructor for summer programs at the Edgerton Center. She has now returned with 15 years of experience in teaching technology and engineering design, computer science, and general science in public middle and high-school classrooms.
Her formal technical training includes a BS in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from Princeton University and a Master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from MIT. She taught Engineering and Computer Science in public high and middle schools for 15 years before returning to MIT.