Profile

Professor Jessica Pandya

Dean and Professor Jessica Pandya’s current research investigates the ways teachers use digital programs to teach, connect with parents, and manage student behaviour in their classrooms. A former San Francisco kindergarten teacher, Jessica was trained as a researcher of language, literacy, and culture at UC Berkeley. Her early work focused on children’s identity work in diverse urban classrooms. Jessica’s unique perspectives will inform the Connected Child program, where she hopes to connect US researchers investigating children’s digital literacy practices in and out of school with their Australian colleagues.

Jessica has published in journals such as Research in the Teaching of English, Language Arts, Teachers College Record, and Review of Research in Education. Her book Exploring Critical Digital Literacy Practices: Everyday Video in a Dual Language Context (Expanding Literacies in Education) won the 2020 Book Award for Excellence in 21st Century Literacies. Jessica is the Past Chair of the American Educational Research Association Writing and Literacies Special Interest Group. She and the other members of the Writing & Literacies SIG edited the Handbook of Writing, Literacies, and Education in Digital Cultures (Routledge, 2017). She is co-founder of the Transnational Critical Literacy Network, and first editor of the forthcoming Critical Literacies Handbook (Routledge, 2021).

Earliest digital memory
Writing long stories on an old Apple computer and saving them on 5×5 floppy disks.



More People

The Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child acknowledges the First Australian owners of the lands on where we gather and pay our respects to the Elders, lores, customs and creation spirits of this country.

The Centre recognises that the examples we set in diversity and inclusion will support young children to respect and celebrate differences in all people. We embed diversity, inclusivity and equality into all aspects of the Centre’s activities and welcome all people regardless of race, ethnicity, social background, religion, gender, age, disability, sexual orientation and national origin.