Biography
Christina's teaching, research, and professional experience focus on informal and object-based learning. Her dissertation research involved the creation and evaluation of an outreach program in a dozen retirement communities using museum objects, and results from over one hundred participants found that the program was characterized by sensory exploration, cognitive and emotional responses, socialization, and the sharing of memories on the part of participants. Program participation was found to have a positive, statistically significant relationship with improvements in mood.
Christina is an instructor in the Museum Studies Master's Degree and Graduate Certificate programs, where she teaches courses on informal learning and audience research & evaluation and is the 2018 recipient of the Harvard Extension School's Petra Shattuck Excellence in Teaching Award. Christina is also a researcher at Project Zero, a research center at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, where she has led or worked with a variety of projects, including:
- the development of a new framework and teacher training model in Reimagining Early Childhood Education, working across 6 continents but based in Abu Dhabi, UAE
- exploration of cross-cultural student online discussion spaces in The Open Canopy/Out of Eden Learn
- Higher Education in the 21st Century, a qualitative study of almost 2,000 higher education stakeholders across the United States
- a quasi-experimental investigation of the impact of 'maker' activities on K-12 students in Agency by Design
- Art Works at Work, a partnership with Independent Schools Victoria to explore the benefits of arts-based programming on the workplace environment in Melbourne, Australia
In addition, she is a Subject Matter Expert for the Institute of Museum and Library Service (IMLS)'s National Museum Survey and is a volunteer board member of the non-profit Massachusetts Odyssey of the Mind, the state branch of an international creative problem-solving competition for students.
Before coming to Harvard, Christina worked as an educator in over a dozen museums, including the J. Paul Getty Museum, National Air and Space Museum, National Zoo, and the Peggy Guggenheim Collection. She has also served as an education and evaluation consultant for education organizations, including Art Beyond Sight, Discovery Museum, MIT Museum, Newport Restoration Foundation.
Christina earned Bachelor's degrees in Art Conservation and Art, with a minor in Art History, from the University of Delaware Honors Program, Master's degrees in Museum Studies from The George Washington University and in Learning & Teaching from the Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE), and a doctorate in Education Policy, Leadership, and Instructional Practice from HGSE.