Lindsay Daugherty is an education policy researcher at the RAND Corporation. She has conducted research on technology-based learning in early childhood, secondary, and post-secondary education settings and recently released a series of short policy briefs that provide tips on effective technology use in early childhood education. Before joining a Zócalo panel discussion about the effects of social media on our children—“Is the Internet Turning Our Kids Into Zombies?”—she talked about craving donuts, swimming in Lake Tahoe, and her compulsion for making lists.
What superpower would you most like to have?
Let’s go with invisibility. I’d like to see what goes on in places I don’t generally have access to.
What dessert do you find impossible to resist?
In the past few months—I’m pregnant—donuts.
Where and when did you learn how to swim?
Lake Tahoe, I grew up in South Lake Tahoe, California side. I also was on the swim team.
What’s your biggest pet peeve?
Lateness. I like people to be on time.
What teacher or professor changed your life, if any?
I had a couple of professors in college at UC Berkeley for classes that were on inequality and discrimination, and it really shifted my focus from other areas of economics.
On what device do you do most of your reading, if any?
Sadly, probably my phone.
What was the last thing that inspired you?
We do a lot of work in community colleges, going out and talking to students, and I was very inspired recently by one student in El Paso who was regularly crossing the border on a daily basis to attend school.
Who was your childhood hero?
I think it was Denzel Washington.
Where do you go to be alone?
Home in the afternoons—my husband works a later schedule than I do.
What is the last habit you tried to kick?
Making too many lists. I work with people and I tend to be organizer of the projects … and I found myself sending out the same versions of the same list one week after another. So I tried to stop doing that.