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Short Bio for David Williamson Shaffer

David Williamson Shaffer is the Sears Bascom Professor of Learning Analytics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the Department of Educational Psychology and a Data Philosopher at the Wisconsin Center for Education Research. His work focuses on the development of Quantitative Ethnography, an approach to merging statistical and qualitative methods to construct fair models of complex and collaborative human activity.

Medium Bio for David Williamson Shaffer

David Williamson Shaffer is the Sears Bascom Professor of Learning Analytics and the Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professor of Learning Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a Data Philosopher at the Wisconsin Center for Education Research. His M.S. and Ph.D. are from the Media Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and before coming to the University of Wisconsin, he was a teacher, teacher-trainer, curriculum developer, and game designer. Professor Shaffer’s current work focuses on merging statistical and qualitative methods to construct fair models of complex and collaborative human activity. He has authored more than 250 publications with over 100 co-authors, including How Computer Games Help Children Learn and Quantitative Ethnography.

Long Bio for David Williamson Shaffer

David Williamson Shaffer is the Sears Bascom Professor of Learning Analytics and the Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professor of Learning Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a Data Philosopher at the Wisconsin Center for Education Research. Before coming to the University of Wisconsin, Professor Shaffer taught grades 4-12 in the United States and abroad, including two years working with the US Peace Corps in Nepal. His M.S. and Ph.D. are from the Media Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Professor Shaffer taught in the Technology and Education Program at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and was a 2008-2009 European Union Marie Curie Fellow. His current focus is on merging statistical and qualitative methods to construct fair models of complex and collaborative human activity. Professor Shaffer has led the development of a suite of quantitative ethnographic tools that are being used by more than a thousand researchers in 20 countries as part of the annual International Conference on Quantitative Ethnography. He has authored more than 250 publications with over 100 co-authors, including How Computer Games Help Children Learn and Quantitative Ethnography.

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