Photo Credit - Camilla Finlay
About Jake Waxman
An artist, teacher, pedagogy innovator, multimedia producer, actor, filmmaker, and photographer, Jake Waxman has worked across fields and on both sides of the camera to gain a unique perspective and experience with creating highly effective educational digital media.
After receiving his B.A. in Theatre Arts, Jake moved to Los Angeles to work in the film industry as an actor and production assistant. After nearly two years in L.A. working on various projects across various roles, Jake moved to Boston to pursue a more scientific approach to media production and communication. Taking a job at Harvard University as a multimodal instructional designer, Jake moved to study existing cognitive science. Later that year, Jake would be tasked with building and directing a new media hub at the Center for Health Decision Science (CHDS) at Harvard University, where he would work with field leaders to create instructional material for a variety of uses: from semester-long courses to short modules and workplace trainings.
The platform gave Jake the opportunity to experiment with novel pedagogies and develop new principles of multimedia-based teaching. Combining evidence from the learning sciences with various artistic principles and backward design processes, Jake developed novel media-based pedagogies and principles.
Further developing his expertise in learning, teaching, and communication design, Jake also earned two master’s degrees during his tenure at the CHDS Media Hub, from Harvard Graduate School of Education and Harvard Extension School, respectively, one in Technology, Innovation, and Education - further informing his expertise in the Learning Sciences, Edu-Tech world, and Learning Design - and one in Digital Media Design - further expanding his toolkit for communicating ideas.
Beginning in 2017, Jake began to work with organizations working in remote, difficult-to-reach areas to create educational, fundraising, and health-improving media. From working in the rugged Peruvian Cordillera Blanca with The Human Outreach Project to create fundraising documentaries, to the snowy mountainsides and jagged cliffs of the North Cascades with the North Cascades Mountain Guides to increase skier and climber safety, to working with the American Institute for Avalanche Research and Education to design their teacher education around heuristics and cognitive biases.
Currently, Jake is working as the director of the Media Hub at the Center for Health Decision Science, where he is responsible for innovating on multimodal pedagogy and supporting the teaching of faculty. Additionally, in 2022 he is slated to work again with the North Cascades Mountain Guides to further develop their educational and commercial media materials.
In his spare time, Jake is an avid multimodal mountain traveler, exploring new terrain through skiing, rock climbing, mountaineering, trail-running, and cycling. Additionally, he competes in full-distance triathlon since 2019, when he finished his first Ironman at Lake Placid- he’ll next be competing at the Boston Triathlon in August 2021 at the Olympic distance, and in Lake Placid and Maryland in 2022 at the 140.6-mile distance.
Waxman holds a Master’s Degree in Technology, Innovation, and Education from Harvard Graduate School of Education (‘20), a Master’s Degree in Digital Media Design from Harvard Extension School (‘20) and a Bachelors in Theatre Arts from Dean College ('14).
