About Us

We founded Inquirium in 2001 to bring the expertise of the Learning Sciences to a broader audience. With extensive backgrounds as educators, designers, and software developers, we bring a highly unique skill set to our client’s projects.

Ben Loh

Ben is a designer and developer of visual-oriented tools for inquiry and argumentation. He has worked on web-based tools for classrooms as well as software tools for museum use, interactive installations, and mobile applications. In his previous life, he was a Technology Curriculum Project Manager at the Chicago Zoological Society where he designed and developed simulations based on the work of Brookfield Zoo scientists. And in ancient history, he designed and coordinated technical publishing projects for training companies.

PhD, Northwestern University

Eric Baumgartner

Eric has substantial experience designing technology for various learning contexts, including desktop, mobile, and web. He is the principal software architect of multiple web-based projects that serve multiple school districts and has managed the technical evolution of multiple web projects with lifespans beyond 10 years. He is also the lead designer and developer of InqScribe, a commercial desktop software product that supports manual transcription and note-taking of digital media.

PhD, Northwestern University

Matt Brown

Matt has extensive experience designing software tools for classroom use and conducting research on teachers’ use of classroom technologies. Prior to his carreer as a Learning Scientist, Matt taught History at the high school and middle school levels, and his classroom experience shapes his approach to software design. He is the producer, manager, and designer of multiple web-based projects that serve school districts nationwide and has guided the vision of multiple projects with 10-20 year lifespans.

PhD, Northwestern University

We speak your language

There are many competent web development firms, but few have our unique mix of expertise.

we pay attention to cognition and instruction
we are senstive to research contexts
we understand the challenges of supporting very different audiences: students vs. teachers vs. researchers vs. professional development trainers vs. curriculum developers vs. administrators.

In addition to providing the specialized skillsets of modern web developers, our learning-oriented lens helps us thread together solutions that are pedagogically sound. We combine this learning expertise with industry-standard skillsets such as information architecture, graphic design, user experience design, database development, and back end development.

Our decades of experience working on research grants means we are attuned to the processes, cycles, and requirements of design-based research projects.

Our Origin Story

Ben, Eric, and Matt met as graduate students in Northwestern University's Learning Sciences program, where we were all working on projects to design innovative classroom software tools to promote inquiry-based learning. We were drawn together by a shared desire to help bring such tools to wider audiences, and we formed Inquirium as an alternate vehicle to take this vision beyond academia.

Over the past 25 years and counting, we have continued to carry out our founding mission to design and build innovative, research-supported learning technologies that promote inquiry and critical thinking, support innovative educational practices, and fit seamlessy into classrooms and informal learning contexts.