Tamara Pearson

My CSTA Story

This is my first formal connection to CSTA, but my path to this work started early. I learned Logo as a child, then taught myself BASIC, and by fifth grade was heading off to computer camp, where I was the only one who looked like me. That gap between access and belonging has shaped my research ever since. As the ACM Education Board’s representative to CSTA, I’m looking forward to working alongside teachers who make sure every student who loves this subject gets to see themselves in it.

My Story

Tamara Pearson, PhD, is Deputy Director and Senior Director of Research and Programs at Georgia Tech’s Constellations Center for Education in Computing. Her career began in the K-12 classroom, teaching technology courses in New York City and mathematics in Atlanta Public Schools. That classroom foundation still anchors her work today. She recently led the development of the Interruption Framework, a theoretical lens developed through a $4.2M NSF grant that examines the forces that disrupt students’ continuity of engagement in STEM and computing pathways. At Constellations, through the North Star Institute, she oversees Computing in the Community, a platform mapping K-12 computing education access across Georgia, and Interpreting Computing Pathways, which studies how students navigate from K-12 into computing fields.

Prior to Constellations, Tamara was the inaugural Director of the Center of Excellence for Minority Women in STEM at Spelman College, where she secured a Google grant to build a data hub on the needs of Black women in STEM. She also served as Associate Director of School and Community Engagement at Georgia Tech’s CEISMC, leading K-12 school and district partnerships.

Outside of work, Tamara is a Yoga Alliance registered teacher (RYT-200). Her teaching lives under the Practice Freedom Project, which she founded in 2020 to expand access to yoga for communities historically underrepresented in wellness spaces.