Amy Bruckman

Amy Susan Bruckman
Amy Bruckman in December, 2001
Born	1965 (age 51–52) New York, New York, USA
Residence	Atlanta, Georgia
Nationality	American
Fields	Online communities, Learning sciences, Constructionist learning, Information ethics
Institutions	Georgia Tech, GVU Center
Alma mater	MIT Media Lab, Harvard University
Doctoral advisor	Mitchel Resnick
Known for	MediaMOO, MOOSE Crossing
Notable awards	MIT Technology Review TR100 AERA Jan Hawkins Award

Amy Susan Bruckman (born 1965) is a professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology affiliated with the School of Interactive Computing and the GVU Center. She is best known for her pioneering research in the fields of online communities and the learning sciences. In 1999, she was selected as one of MIT Technology Review's TR100 award, honoring 100 remarkable innovators under the age of 35.

Amy S. Bruckman was born in New York, New York. She attended the Horace Mann School, an Ivy Preparatory School in New York City, graduating in 1983. Following that, Bruckman attended Harvard University for her undergraduate studies, earning a Bachelor of Arts degree in physics in 1987. She received a master's degree in 1991 from the Interactive Cinema Group at the MIT Media Lab, where she was advised by Glorianna Davenport. Her master's thesis described the Electronic Scrapbook, an intelligent home video editing system.

Bruckman went on to pursue a Ph.D. at the Media Lab in Mitchel Resnick's Epistemology and Learning Group. On January 20, 1993, Bruckman established MediaMOO, an online community for new media researchers and educators. The community, managed chiefly by Bruckman, developed a significant following for its time, eventually closing down seven years later. During this time, Bruckman also worked as a research assistant for Sherry Turkle on Turkle's influential book, Life on the Screen (1997). For her dissertation work, Bruckman developed MOOSE Crossing, a MOO-based constructionist learning environment in which young children could learn computer programming skills while building virtual objects.