Dr Clara Rivera

• Associate Investigator
• University of Wollongong
• mcr@uow.edu.au
• Google Scholar

As Business Support Officer, Dr Clara Rivera is the ‘first point of contact’ for the University of Wollongong (UOW) node. Clara brings to the Centre more than 5 years’ experience as Project Officer to an ARC Discovery project and other related research on children’s digital play. Her PhD project, the recipient of the 2021 Beth Southwell Award for Outstanding Thesis in Educational Research, draws from the field of Child-Computer Interaction (CCI) and principles of children’s rights methodologies. The study explored the perspectives of children as co-designers and co-researchers in the development of an app for preschoolers. Clara also brings with her 6-years’ experience of supporting children develop their creative thinking skills through digital media production at the Belfast Computer Clubhouse, Ireland.

Clara draws from her extensive research and professional experience to support UOW’s research activities, manage communication across the Centre, and contribute to the operations of the UOW Children’s Technology Play Space. She is thrilled to have a role in supporting young children in their digital explorations and hopes to contribute to the ethical representation of children’s voices, particularly in the ways these can inform the evolution of children’s future digital experiences.

Earliest digital memory
Hearing the sound of the dot matrix printer! Digital text production as a young child meant producing birthday cards, long banners, then later making websites and GIF animations – before ‘meme’ was even a word.

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