Mitchel Resnick

Mitchel Resnick, LEGO Papert Professor of Learning Research at the MIT Media Lab, develops new technologies and activities to engage young people from diverse backgrounds in project-based, interest-driven learning experiences, helping them develop as creative, curious, caring, and collaborative learners

His Lifelong Kindergarten research group developed the Scratch programming software and online community, used by more than 150 million young people around the world to create their own interactive stories, games, and animations. More recently, the group developed OctoStudio, a free coding app that enables young people to express themselves creatively with mobile devices. The group has also collaborated with the LEGO Company on the development of new educational ideas and products, including the LEGO Mindstorms robotics kits. Resnick co-founded the Computer Clubhouse project, an international network of more than 100 after-school learning centers where youth from low-income communities learn to express themselves creatively with new technologies.

Resnick earned a BA in physics at Princeton University (1978) and MS and PhD degrees in computer science at MIT (1988, 1992). He worked as a science-technology journalist from 1978 to 1983. 

Resnick is author of the book Lifelong Kindergarten: Cultivating Creativity through Projects, Passion, Peers, and Play, which won the PROSE award for Education Practice in 2018. He is also author of Turtles, Termites, and Traffic Jams (1994), co-editor of Constructionism in Practice (1996), and co-author of Adventures in Modeling (2001) and The Official ScratchJr Book (2015). He was awarded the McGraw Prize in Education (2011), the AACE EdMedia Pioneer Award (2013), the ISTE Making IT Happen Award (2018), the LEGO Prize (2021), and the SIGCSE Award for Outstanding Contribution to Computer Science Education (2025).