Madlyn Larson

​​As Associate Director of Education Initiatives at the Natural History Museum of Utah, Madlyn Larson focuses on the development of learning environments that support the development of critical thinking skills.

Specifically, she works with teachers, students, learning scientists, scientists, technology experts and other partners to grow the Museum’s premier digitally delivered program, Research Quest, and the emerging Critical Action Lab, a space for teens to connect, grow and identify long-term pathways for positive community impact.

Madlyn Larson will be speaking at the Digital Learning Summit 2026 :

Beyond Access: What Can Digitized Collections Do for Learning?

Museums have invested enormous resources in digitizing their collections. But what happens when we move beyond making collections accessible and start designing with them for learning? In this fast-paced conversation, the Natural History Museum of Utah’s Research Quest team will share what they’re discovering through a decade of designing digital investigations with authentic natural history collections. Through examples from Research Quest, we’ll explore how digitized specimens can become more than objects to view: they can become evidence to investigate, patterns to uncover, and tools for building explanations. Join us to rethink what digitized collections can make possible for learners—and imagine what could happen if more museums explored these possibilities together.