Gina Navoa Svarovsky iteratively designs, builds, and tests epistemic games based on the profession of engineering. After graduating from the University of Notre Dame, Gina entered ACE, a two year volunteer teaching program serving under-resourced schools. While teaching physics, she became increasingly interested in how engaging students in authentic engineering design projects could help them better understand concepts in the course, which led her to the University of Wisconsin and the Epistemologies of Practice research group.

Gina is interested in exploring how epistemic games based on engineering can help middle school students - particularly girls - to build their conceptual understanding in physics and biomechanics. Moreover, she investigates how students can begin to develop an engineering epistemic frame, which can potentially motivate students to choose engineering as a career path. She completed the Berta's Tower project in 2003 and is currently working on the Digital Zoo project.

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