MAPSCorps, a national model for training and employing high school and college students to conduct comprehensive, technology-driven community asset mapping, started as a collaboration between UChicago and South Side community partners in 2008.
Now, MAPSCorps, which went on to become an independent not-for-profit based in Hyde Park, is entering a new era. Its team, technology, and STEM programs will become part of Northwestern University’s Digital Youth Network (DYN) lab, under the leadership of computer scientist Nichole Pinkard, the Alice Hamilton Professor of Learning Sciences at Northwestern. Pinkard served as director of innovation for UChicago’s Urban Education Institute earlier in her career.
“Combining forces with the Digital Youth Network will amplify both programs' ability to achieve long-term impact,“ said Stacy Lindau, the Catherine Lindsay Dobson Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology and Medicine at UChicago, whose interdisciplinary research lab led MAPSCorps work since its start. “Major new initiatives to extend and strengthen the nation's STEM pipeline are actively seeking proven, evidence-based, scalable programs like the kind MAPSCorps and DYN can uniquely offer together.” Read more about MAPSCorps’ new iteration
