Tinkering Tinkerer: Cynthia Solomon

Cynthia Solomon is an American computer scientist known for her work in artificial intelligence and popularizing computer science for students. She is a pioneer in the fields of artificial intelligence, computer science, and educational computing. While working as a researcher at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cynthia took it upon herself to understand and program in the programming language Lisp. As she began learning this language she realized the need for a programming language that was more accessible and understandable for children. Throughout her research studies in education, Dr. Solomon worked full-time as a computer teacher in elementary and secondary schools. Her work has mainly focused on research on human-computer interaction and children as designers. She created the first programming language for children, Logo, along with Wally Feurzeig and Seymour Papert. Logo was created to teach concepts of programming related to Lisp.

Cynthia worked on the program committee of Constructing Modern Knowledge and the Marvin Minsky Institute on Artificial Intelligence in 2016. She has published many writings based on research in the field of child education and technology in the classroom, and has conducted workshops on Academic research and writing at all levels of education. She continues to contribute to the field by speaking at conferences and working with the One Laptop Per Child Foundation.