Erin Walker smiles at the camera while wearing a hat.

Erin Walker

Digital Textbook Whisperer

Erin Walker is an Assistant Professor in the School of Computing, Informatics, and Decision Systems at Arizona State University. Her research uses interdisciplinary methods to improve the design and implementation of educational technology, and then to understand when and why it is effective. She is particularly interested in the intersection between personalized learning environments, cutting-edge interaction methods, and large-scale deployments of technology.

Before joining ASU as a professor, she held a Computing Innovations Fellowship at ASU. She investigated how adaptive support technology influences interaction and learning using teachable robotic agents. She also collaborated with Amy Ogan and Ryan Baker on a cross-cultural research project where she deployed intelligent tutoring systems in several different countries, and used qualitative and quantitative methods to evaluate their effects.

She did her PhD at Carnegie Mellon University in Human-Computer Interaction. Working with advisors Ken Koedinger and Nikol Rummel, the Adaptive Peer Tutoring Assistant (APTA) was built, an intelligent tutor that improves the quality of student peer tutoring and learning.

Prior to entering the PhD program, she received a B.Sc. at the University of Manitoba, with a double major in Computer Science and Psychology. She was born and raised in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.