Dr. Shea brings together ethnographic study of informal learning environments with theories of learning that focus on the social, cultural, and historical interactions. Drawing on historical and political roots of educational inequity, Dr. Shea focuses on design interventions that interrupt social and environmental injustices. She studies the design and organization of collective group efforts that seek to shift knowledge production and learning. Additionally, Shea participates in collaborative design efforts that promote more just learning opportunities. Dr. Shea has studies local organizing and learning in the Food Justice Movement, curriculum reform in a business school during Occupy Wall Street, and community-designed afterschool STEAM spaces connected to the Maker Movement. Each of these efforts examine how power, race, gender and class intersect with notions of knowledge creation, expertise, and learning. Her interest is in understanding how communities actively work against infrastructures of power in order to design for more just futures