Gabe Abrams

Education

Master of Engineering in Computer Science

Thesis Project in Educational Technology

Cornell University

3.99/4.00 GPA

Outstanding Project of the Year Award

Bachelor of Arts in Physics

Minors in Education and Computer Science

Cornell University

3.72/4.00 GPA

Dean's List, six semesters

National Society of Collegiate Scholars

Study Abroad, Madrid, Spain

Experience

Principal Software Engineer & EdTech Innovator, Harvard University — 2022 to Present

Leads a team of EdTech Software Engineers tasked with improving Harvard courses through pedagogy-focused educational tools. Manages the concept, design, development, rollout, and scaling of many projects while reviewing and delegating work, acting as a cross-team liaison, and expert in web app development and pedagogy in higher ed. Example current projects include the Immersive Classroom, a supercharged video player that leverages AI to create engaging asynchronous course content from recorded hyflex classrooms, Gather Study Lounge, an interactive online space for student interaction and collaboration, and Harvard Hello, an all-in-one self-service course management tool that allows faculty to sign up for trainings, get support, migrate course content, and install LTI apps. Also updates and maintains existing tools that are used by all ~1900 Harvard Division of Continuing Education courses, professional development programs, and crimson summer academy courses.

Dean's Champions of Excellence Award, Nominee, 2023

HILT Learning Design Affinity Group (Co-chair), 2023 to 2024

Harvard AI Futures Working Group, 2023 to 2024

Party Planning Committee for Teaching and Learning, 2022 to 2024

DCE Dean's Council on Employee Experience, 2023 to 2024

Harvard Committee for Employee Experience, 2022 to 2023

Inclusive Leadership for a Diverse Workplace, Harvard 2024

The Positive Workplace: Building Employee Engagement and Satisfaction, Harvard, 2023

Becoming a Leader: Developing Your Style and Making Sound Decisions, Harvard, 2023

Universal Manager Training, Harvard, 2023

Senior Software Engineer, Harvard University — 2018 to 2022

Collaborated with teaching teams and course designers at Harvard's Division of Continuing Education to design and build instructional technology tools and scale existing edtech. Projects included algorithms to identify students at risk, analytics dashboards for faculty, swipe-in automated attendance, and tools for Zoom. Each semester, Abrams' educational tools were used by hundreds of Harvard courses: ~100 Harvard courses in Fall 2020, ~550 in Spring 2021, and more than 700 in later semesters.

Dean's Champion of Excellence Award, Finalist, 2022

Dean's Award for Excellence in Innovation, 2020

Division of Continuing Education Above and Beyond Award, 2019

Harvard Remote Work Committee, 2020 to 2022

Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging Committee, 2019 to 2022

The Positive Workplace: Building Employee Engagement and Satisfaction, 2022

EdTech Consultant, Berkman Klein Center — 2021

Provided insight and audits the code and design of Threads, a custom pseudonymous chat platform for classes. Specifically focuses on scalability, LTI integration, usability for faculty and students, and thinking of new ways the platform could be used to improve courses.

Instructional Technology Fellow, Harvard University — 2016 to 2018

Worked directly with faculty and teaching teams, developed a suite of instructional technology tools, built authentication and authorization frameworks for Harvard's JupyterHub and Virtual Desktop environments, and created Inclass - the Harvard EdTech App Store.

Diversity and Inclusion Committee, 2016 to 2018

Edtech Developer & Consultant, Cornell University — 2015 to 2019

Built a drag-and-drop robot programming platform allowing students to program Baxter, an industry-grade educational robot. Created curriculum for a middle-school summer program that taught students programming and robotics through hands-on projects that utilized the programming platform. Co-taught three iterations of the summer program with Prof. Ross Knepper at Cornell University through the NY 4-H organization. Actively worked at Cornell through Fall 2015, collaborated and led summer programs each following summer.

Teaching

Technology Field Expert, Harvard University — 2023

Sat as an web app and web development technology expert for two DGMD E-599 (Digital Media Capstone) panels, working with degree candidates on their capstone projects. Gave productive product feedback, focusing on technology and implementation, design and accessibility, and project management and prioritization.

Guest Lecturer, Harvard University — 2020

Led classes for DGMD S-61 (Working with Educational Technologies), a new EdTech course at the Harvard Division of Continuing Education. Guest lectures included background on EdTech, LTI, SCORM, and information on developing Canvas-integrated EdTech. Due to the outbreak of COVID-19, the course was also offered online, so part of my work also included video content creation, editing, and production.

Summer Program Instructor, Cornell University — 2015 to 2019

Taught a robotics summer program for middle and highschool students from schools that lacked resources for technical courses. Led the program in 2018 and co-taught in 2015, 2016, 2017, and since 2018. Collaborated with the New York 4-H foundation, who offered the program through their residential summer college course list.

Program Coordinator, Hawaii Leadership Academy — 2007 to 2015

Coordinated sixteen week-long leadership programs teaching interpersonal skills to foster children and victims of physical or substance abuse. Designed itinerary and curriculum for up to 120 students per program and facilitated academic, team building, and goal setting workshops.

Instructor, University of Hawaii — 2015

Designed and taught Exploring Physics through Game Design (ENR4500), a summer course where students learned different physics concepts while developing seven educational computer games. Created the educational technology and curriculum for lectures, coding projects, and physics labs.

Teaching Assistant and Lab Instructor, Cornell University — 2012 to 2015

Led seven semesters of recitation sessions, physics labs, exam preparation workshops for multiple different introductory physics courses and labs while also doing one-on-one tutoring for undergraduate physics students.

Cornell Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award, 2014

After School Program Coordinator, Ithaca City School District — 2014

Created and co-taught two ten-week after school programs: one helping students publish their own novels in the school library and one promoting engineering and science skills through hands-on projects, a program done in conjunction with Odyssey of the Mind. Taught sessions and managed funding and curriculum in a team of four.

Conference Sessions Facilitated

Building Trans-Affirming EdTech: 10 EdTech Changes that Uplift Trans & Nonbinary Students InstructureCon 2024
Calling technologists and developers to join Gabe Abrams (they/them), a trans nonbinary edtech developer on their mission to build technologies that affirm and uplift trans and nonbinary faculty, staff, and students. They will introduce 10 specific and actionable ways to choose and create edtech that builds trust and models affirmation.
Getting Fancy with the Zoom API: Automate Zoom Classes and Events at Scale Harvard IT Summit 2024
Watch live demos of how DCE automatically sets up thousands of Zoom classes each year, including class and section Zoom meetings that always have secure and accessible meeting settings, “in case of emergency” Zoom spaces for covid pivots and inclement weather, and “study lounge” Zoom meetings that students can use for socials and project work. We’ll also take a look under the hood, giving participants a deeper technical understanding of what tools and libraries are required to create Zoom automations (spoilers: it’s easier than you think!). Finally, we’ll wrap up by connecting the two sections so participants will leave with 1) a peek into DCE’s Zoom automations, 2) an understanding of how to build your own automations with the Zoom API, and 3) a list of concrete examples of API-based automations that we use at DCE.
Preserving the Magic: How HBS and DCE Reimagined Online Learning Harvard IT Summit 2024
Description When at their best, classrooms feel magical, as instructors and students connect with one another and draw on their subject expertise to engage on issues of the day. Both HBS and DCE set out to recapture this magic by reimagining what is possible in online education. This presentation will showcase two online learning platforms that push the limits of technology: HBS’s Live Online Classroom, a synchronous learning environment designed to replicate the dynamic nature of HBS’s traditional classrooms, and the DCE’s Immersive Classroom, a supercharged course video player that dynamically auto-generates asynchronous activities for HyFlex courses based on what happened in the live class. In this session, we’ll share demos of our learning experiences as well as the principles and approaches we took to get there. Presenters Gabe Abrams, Principal Software Engineer and EdTech Innovator, Division of Continuing Education, Faculty of Arts and Sciences Dustin Hilt, Director, HBS Live Online Classrooms, Information Technology, Harvard Business School Karina Lin-Murphy, Associate Director of Course Design and Pedagogical Innovation, Christensen Center, Harvard Business School Adrienne Phelps-Coco, Executive Director of Teaching and Learning, Division of Continuing Education, Faculty of Arts and Sciences
New Tools for Online Teaching: Study Lounge & Immersive Classroom Harvard Summer School Orientation 2024
Nurturing Human Connection in AI-Enhanced Learning Environments HILT Conference 2023
While AI can enhance learning experiences, it is the human touch that brings empathy, emotional support, and personalized guidance to students. Through group discussions centered around case studies, we examine the risks and rewards of specific AI enhancements to explore the following key themes: How AI can complement and amplify student-educator relationships and peer-to-peer interactions Strategies for integrating AI technologies while maintaining a healthy balance between technological advancements and the human element Equity, inclusivity, and student agency in AI-driven educational settings Leveraging AI as a tool to support educators in their interpersonal interactions and promote student engagement Featuring: Greg Kestin, Associate Director of Science Education; Lecturer on Physics (FAS) Nicole Mills, Senior Preceptor in Romance Languages and Literatures; Director of Language Programs for French, Italian and Portuguese (FAS) Adrienne Phelps-Coco, Executive Director of Teaching and Learning (DCE) Facilitators: Gabe Abrams, Principal Software Engineer and EdTech Innovator (DCE) Jascha Smilack, Director of HarvardX Courses (VPAL)
Creating Community with Asynchronous & Synchronous Students DCE Instructor Development 2022
Pandemic Problem-solving: Showcasing Tech Solutions to Teaching Challenges VPAL Summit 2021
Pandemic Problem-solving: Showcasing Tech Solutions to Teaching Challenges Presenters: Gabe Abrams, Senior Software Engineer (DCE) Annie Rota, Director, Academic Technology Group (FAS, HUIT) Ian Tosh, Assistant Director of Educational Technology (HKS) Although the pandemic has brought entirely new teaching challenges and exacerbated long-standing problems, it has also been a catalyst for creative uses of technology. In part 1 of this session, we showcase tech-based solutions to challenges we've all faced during this pandemic. Stay for part 2 for an opportunity to break into smaller interest groups to explore solutions to the teaching challenges you're facing in your own work.
How Our LTI App Store Made the COVID Online Transition a Snap InstructureCon 2020
We gathered Harvard faculty and staff to build an open-source LTI App Store that lets instructors find/install apps, gives technologists control over app installation permissions, and eases the load on support teams. This made switching hundreds of courses online for COVID-19 easy: instructors installed their own edtech. https://www.instructure.com/events/2020/canvascon?wchannelid=nuemzoxgac&wmediaid=z5ojzab7xd
An LTI App Store: How we Designed, Built, and Deployed it to AWS Harvard IT Summit 2020
Effortlessly Build LTI Apps with CACCL, DCE's Canvas Library HUIT Tech Talk Series 2020
Building Suites of Education-focused LTIs Florida International University 2019
Making Peer Learning Accessible Harvard Initiative for Teaching & Learning 2019
Learning Engineering: Evidence-Based Strategies for Continuous Learning Outcome Improvement UPCEA 2019
The book Breakthrough Leadership in the Digital Age: Using Learning Science to Reboot Schooling (2013), provided inspiration for a “learning engineering” group at the Harvard Extension School. Those efforts included a global workshop and collaboration across industry, nonprofits, foundations, professors, and practitioners that resulted in the book Learning Engineering for Online Education: Theoretical Contexts and Design-Based Example (2018). This session is designed to share key ideas and approaches to learning engineering from this project and how others can implement similar strategies. Presenters: Chris Dede, Harvard University Gabe Abrams, Harvard University Moderator: Rita Burrell, Purdue University
A Harvard LTI Tool Suite: new grading tools, swipe-in attendance & facilitated collaboration InstructureCon 2019
How six Harvard courses leveraged homemade Canvas tools to measure grader harshness and comment coverage, promoting fair and consistent grading; to intelligently seat students upon swipe-in, encouraging peer network building; and to enable new ways to grade, like self-grading and horizontal grading. https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/InstructureCon-2018/A-Harvard-LTI-Tool-Suite-New-Ways-to-Grade-Faster-and-More/m-p/384354

Committees

Harvard Committee for Employee Experience — 2022 to 2023
Harvard Remote Work Committee — 2020 to 2022
Harvard Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging Committee — 2020 to 2021
Harvard Diversity & Inclusion Committee — 2016 to 2017

Technical Skills

Web Design:

Typescript JavaScript HTML CSS Bootstrap jQuery Chart.js

Server Technologies:

Node.js Express Mongo MySQL DynamoDB NGINX

Media and Production:

Photoshop Illustrator Final Cut Pro Premiere Lightroom Logic Pro

Cloud Infrastructure:

AWS Heroku

Web App Development:

React EJS socket.io

Office:

Excel PowerPoint Numbers Keynote Google Sheets Google Slides

Favorite Languages:

JavaScript Python Java Octave Matlab

Teaching in Action

Gabe teaching students to program Baxter the robot how to stack colored blocks.

Students getting Baxter to stack nine blocks.

Building houses out of blocks with Baxter.