Francisco Castro-Norwood

Interests

Human-centered computing, computing education, learning sciences, theory and technology development for computing education and STEM learning, and health informatics education and technologies

Research

Dr. Castro's current research focuses on studying how people learn to use and interact with technologies: how users' mental models about computing and technologies shape their interactions, decisions, and workflows, and how users' environments and contexts influence these interactions. He has applied his work in human-centered computing in various areas including airline operations, computing education, and health informatics. His computing education work explores the cognitive factors that influence how novice programmers learn program design, and how learners engage in problem-solving. He is a co-developer and researcher on the Wearable Learning Cloud Platform, a platform for learners and educators to design and play physically-engaging and collaborative mathematics games. 

Biography

Dr. Castro received his PhD in Computer Science from Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Master in Information Technology from the Ateneo de Manila University, and B.S. in Computer Science from the University of the Philippines. His work in computing education and social simulation has won Best Paper awards in various research conferences. He is involved in outreach activities for teaching programming and other STEM skills to young learners and learners in marginalized communities.