Meryl Alper
malper [at] usc [dot] edu
Meryl Alper graduated magna cum laude from Northwestern University in 2005, double majoring in Communication Studies and History. She also holds a certificate in Early Childhood Education from UCLA. As an undergraduate at Northwestern, she was Lab Assistant Manager in the NSF-funded Children's Digital Media Center/Digital Kids Lab and interned in the Education & Research Department at Sesame Workshop in New York. Post graduation, Meryl worked in Los Angeles as Research Manager for Nick Jr., conducting formative research for various educational preschool television series, and as Programming Coordinator for Disney Channel. At Annenberg, her research focuses on young children’s evolving relationships with analog and digital technologies. She also studies intergenerational media use among children and families, media literacy in early childhood education, children’s psychological processing of interactive media, and representations of nationality in children’s television. Currently, Meryl serves as a Research Assistant with Project New Media Literacies and the Annenberg Innovation Lab, and is involved in research initiatives with The Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop.