Before joining the Lifelong Kindergarten group in the MIT Media Lab, Cecilé Sadler saw computer engineering and community service as separate aspects of her life. Alongside her bachelor’s and master’s work in computer engineering at North Carolina State and Duke University, respectively, Sadler also spent a lot of time working with young people through local Boys and Girls Clubs and public schools. Now, she blends both of her passions as a graduate student in the Program in Media Arts and Sciences.
“The work I do now is that happy medium,” says Sadler, whose thesis grew out of a collaboration with a Cambridge-based grassroots community organization called blackyard, which organizes after-school programming centering Black youth. Sadler brings STEM and coding activities developed by MIT’s Lifelong Kindergarten group to blackyard, while trying to understand what makes a positive learning environment for the students.
“The activities that I’ve been doing with the young people have been centered around this idea of dreaming through code,” says Sadler. “How do you cultivate and support radical imagination and engage in conversations that allow you to describe ideas important to you and your community?”
Sadler wants to have an impact with everything she does, whether it’s generating
