Biography
Dr. Heath (she/her/hers) is the Education Specialties Department Chair and an Associate Professor of Learning Design & Technology at Loyola University Maryland. Prior to her work in higher education, Dr. Heath taught high school social studies in Baltimore County Public Schools. Her teaching experiences influenced her research, which focuses on the intersection of education, civic engagement, and technology in order to foster social change.
Dr. Heath is the co-editor of the CITE Social Studies journal, co-founder and co-executive director of the Civics of Technology project, and past chair of the Social Studies SIG and the Critical Theory in Teaching and Technolgy (CTTT) SIG for SITE. Dr. Heath is a Faculty Associate at the Center for Equity, Leadership, and Social Justice in Education.
Research Interest
Dr. Heath’s scholarship interrogates schools and technologies as current sites of encoded oppression, and labors to advance more just technological and educational futures. Working at the intersection of critical theory and media study approaches, Dr. Heath’s research interrogates technologies in schools and society to answer the question, as digital technologies continue encroaching in our lives, how can we advance technology education for just futures? As a scholar working toward social justice, Dr. Heath is committed to powerful public scholarship while maintaining productive and traditional avenues of scholarly impact.
Dr. Heath has published articles on technoskepticism, AI, technology, justice, equity, and education. She has an in-press book co-authored with friend and colleague Dr. Stephanie Smith Budhai, Critical AI in K-12 Classrooms: A Practical Guide for Cultivating Joy and Justice, with Harvard Education Press. She has also published policy reports on AI and Education through NORRAG and to the United Nations General Assembly, via the Special Rapporteur on the right to education.
Dr. Heath has published in prestigious and rigorous journals including Computers & Education; Education, Research, Technology & Development; Learning, Media & Technology, and the Journal of Teacher Education. She has won numerous awards including the 2023 The National Technology Leadership Initiative (NTLI) Fellowship Award (CUFA), the 2023 Best Paper Award in the Technology as Agent of Change (TACTL) SIG at the American
Recent Publications
Smith Budhai, S. & Heath, M. K., (In press, 2026). Critical AI in K-12 classrooms: A practical guide for cultivating joy and justice. Harvard Education Press.
Warr, M. & Heath, M.K. (2025). Uncovering the hidden curriculum in Generative AI: A reflective technology audit for teacher educators. Journal of Teacher Education. Online First.
Pleasants, J., Gui, X., Krutka, D. G., Logan, C., & Heath, M. K. (2024). Coming to critical technology consciousness: a phenomenological study of educators. Learning, Media and Technology, 1-14.**
Heath, M. K., & Moore, S. (2024). Locating TPACK XK Between Theory and Practice: Reflective Practice, Applied Ethics, and Technoskeptical Dispositions. Computers and Education Open, 100204.
Heath, M.K., Krutka, D.G., Gleason, B. (2024). “See Results Anyway”: Auditing social media as educational technology. Information and Learning Sciences. Online first.
Heath, M.K., Krutka, D.G., Jarke, J., Macgilchrist, F. (2024). Critique needs community: On a humanities approach to a civics of technology. Postdigital Science and Education, 6(1), 369-382.