Skip to content Skip to navigation

Tanner Vea

Photo of Tanner Vea

Tanner Vea,
PhD '18

Studying animal rights activists

Tanner Vea, PhD ’18, studies animal rights activists to deepen the contribution the learning sciences can make to understanding political change. A former producer and game designer at WNET in New York, Vea came to the GSE’s Learning Sciences and Technology Design program to study parent-child interaction around digital tablets. But in his first year, he took an anthropology course in posthumanist theory that, he says, “sort of blew my mind” and revised his trajectory. For three years, Vea worked with activists who staged protests in grocery stores and restaurants and rescued farm animals that appeared to need veterinary care. By documenting and sharing visuals of their efforts with the public, activists influence people’s emotions—a key, Vea says, to understanding today’s political life. “We like to think of ourselves as ‘reasoning’ through politics,” he says, “but the way we feel is crucial.” In research on learning, he points out, emotion is usually studied in the context of motivation, as something that drives or inhibits learning. But he looks at emotions as learning outcomes in their own right. “Animal rights activists use tactics to make people feel certain ways,” he says. “Political change is often most effective when our passions are most inflamed, and becoming passionate is something we learn to do together.” 

June 15, 2018
Photo by Ilana M. Horwitz, PhD ’19

More Community stories

Chee Wing Chan standing outside, smiling, with a lake, a building and some hills in the background
Chee Wing Chan, MA '22 Policy, Organization, and Leadership Studies
Working to change organizational culture
Read this story
Maya Green is getting her minor in education from the GSE.
Maya Green, BA '24, undergrad minor
A commitment to lifelong learning
Read this story
Photo of Julia Quintero
Julia Quintero, '15, MA '18 Stanford Teacher Education Program
"Pre-ed" opportunities for undergrads
Read this story
Back to the Top