Iris Tabak is the incoming Co-Editor in Chief, with Joshua Radinsky (UIC), of The Journal of the Learning Sciences, and a former President of the International Society of the Learning Sciences. She studies mediated cognition: the ways in which multiple resources, e.g., other people, external representations, technological tools or even emotions play a role in the way we analyze and synthesize information to solve problems, make decisions, or accomplish tasks. She engages in design-based research, in naturalistic and in lab studies. Teaching includes design and use of technology and gaming in education, science education, classroom discourse, and qualitative methods. She was a partner (PI) in the FP7 project (with 7 EU partners) Digital Support for Inquiry, Collaboration, and Reflection on Socio-Scientific Debates (www.coreflect.org). She is a cooperating partner in the Interactive Robotics Research Network (INTRO).

Dr. Tabak holds a Ph.D. in the Learning Sciences from Northwestern University (1999), and a B.S.E in Computer Engineering from the University of Michigan. Academic distinctions include: NARST Outstanding Dissertation award (2001), NIMH Postdoctoral Fellow at UCLA (1999-2000), Educational Testing Service Predoctoral Research Fellowship (Summer 1996), Spencer Foundation Dissertation Fellow (1998-1999), Rashi-Guastalla Fellow for the Advancement of Science Education (2001-2003), Mandel Fellow for Research in Education (2003), AERA Division C Jan Hawkins Award for Early Career Contributions to Humanistic Research in Learning Technologies.