Foundational learning with evidence-based EdTech

Karen Levesque

Karen is Head of Research at the NGO Imagine Worldwide where she has driven efforts to improve foundational learning in underserved schools using personalized offline tablet programs. After leading five years of rigorous research across multiple countries, her team proved that the technology supports literacy and numeracy even in large classrooms with few resources. As Imagine scaled up, Karen focused on maintaining implementation quality and addressing challenges such as teacher engagement and students’ working memory difficulties. While children are the priority at Imagine Worldwide, for Karen, understanding and supporting the adults around them including teachers, parents, and communities is essential for lasting educational impact and equity.

Listen to Karen

“We all have many good ideas. But if we’re going to have an impact on children, on teachers, on classrooms, on communities, we really have to demonstrate that our good ideas actually make a difference.”

Karen Levesque

Karen Levesque

Karen Levesque (PhD) is Head of Research at Imagine Worldwide. She has led multiple RCTs establishing the efficacy of personalized EdTech to improve foundational learning. With the program expanding in several African countries, she now focuses Imagine’s research on ensuring that quality is maintained as the program scales and on supporting continuous improvement of the software and implementation. Karen lived for several years in Senegal. She earned her AB at Smith College, MPP at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, and PhD at the University of California-Berkeley.