Hello, world! 🌎 👋 👩‍💻 My name is Izzy Lapidus and I am a senior at Barnard College of Columbia University majoring in Computing, Design, and Pedagogy—a special major I created to pursue my passion for re-imagining computer science education 🚀 As a sophomore, I was Barnard's youngest selected speaker at the annual Barnard Gala celebrating past, present, and future Barnard students in STEM. 

In Spring 2023, I studied abroad in Copenhagen, Denmark in the Child Development and Education program. Throughout the semester, I spent 40 hours at a local elementary school where I designed and taught my own computer science curriculum to a class of 7-year-olds each week, curating a mix of unplugged and Scratch-based activities. See here for an example of my slide deck. 👾 I also took a Children With Special Needs course where I worked on a praxis project developing a 5-piece framework for creating an inclusive computer science education environment. See here for my Designing for Inclusion slide deck. 🧩

I’m particularly interested in exploring and dismantling the barriers that exist in CS education for those historically excluded from computing fields. For my senior thesis project at Barnard, I'm co-creating the very first computer science education course in Barnard's history: CS in the City, which will be co-taught by my two major advisors in Barnard's CS and Education departments respectively. I'm hoping to use CS in the City as a scaleable foundational CS course that can be brought to K-12 schools across my community, New York City. By laying a foundation in NYC, I'm idealizing that CS in the City can be expanded to schools across the nation and world. With this said, as I continue to finalize the course with my advisor, I'm additionally working on bringing together a global community of students passionate about advocating and creating in-school computer science education opportunities in their own communities. I believe that computer science education should be a foundational part of the in-school education of every student, in every school, everywhere. 47% of public high schools in the U.S do not offer a single computer science course—we have work to do! If you're interested in working with me to bring CS Ed to schools in your community, shoot me an email 👩‍💻❤️🌎

I also serve as the Head of Communications Committee at Barnard Admissions where I oversee how our Barnard Student Admissions Representative (BSAR) team engages with our 14K social media reach. I also serve as a BSAR myself & lead many tours for prospective students! 🤳

Beyond Admissions, I serve as a Senior STEAM Student Educational Experience Designer (SEED) in Barnard's Community Engagement and Inclusion Office. I've designed, taught, organized, and facilitated a variety of different STEAM learning experiences. I was the lead designer of the Math Olympics, an event for a class of 5th graders to practice their fractions and multiplication skills. I was also the lead designer of STEM Fest, an end-of-school-year celebration of all things STEM involving 5+ different hands-on STEM learning activities 🧬👩‍🔬👩‍💻

I'm an active member of the Kode With Klossy community and spent the early months of Summer 2023 serving as an Instructor Assistant in our Web Development camps. Through my work as a Content Creator and Community Ambassador with KWK, I've emceed KWK x Apple events, interviewed Karlie Kloss, spoken on several panels, and got a handshake in with Tim Cook 💚

In the past, I've interned with the Barnard Athena Center for Leadership as their Entrepreneurship Intern organizing and co-hosting our annual Barnard Startup Summit for aspiring and established entrepreneurs in the Barnard ecosystem 👥

I'm a self-taught iOS developer and am working on building my first app. It's called Codele—it's like the Wordle but it's daily coding questions! 🎲

I create tons of content across my Instagram, TikTok, and LinkedIn where I share about computer science education, applying to Barnard, Notion tips, and everything in between. Tap in! 💥

As a forever camp-kid, I spend the majority of my summers at my childhood sleepaway camp working as a bunk counselor in the middle-of-nowhere Massachusetts. I believe that this is the some of the most important work a young person passionate about education can do. There's nothing more relaxing to me than hanging out with a bunch of kids bedazzling things and making friendship bracelets. I serve on the Leadership Team at my camp and am already counting down the days till next summer!

My most-active email is ibl2105@barnard.edu.
- For networking calls and interests in connecting about CS in the City or organizing for CS Ed, please email me with the subject line [CS ED ORGANIZING].
- For speaking engagements, influencer marketing, and partnerships, please email me, with the subject lines [SPEAKING], [INFLUENCING], or [PARTNERSHIP] respectively.

Thanks for supporting me on my journey—know that I'm always supporting you on yours :)