Okada studies how education and technology help people act on real-world problems that matter to them. Her work connects environmental, social and economic challenges across local, national and global scales.
Too often, learners gain knowledge without the purpose, judgement or opportunity to act on it. Technology can widen this gap or help close it. Her work addresses this challenge, especially for learners who are most often left behind.
At the heart of her research is CARE-KNOW-DO, a framework she developed in 2015:
- Care: Learners start with issues that matter to them and their communities.
- Know: They investigate those issues and build an evidence base.
- Do: They act on what they have learned with others — and through action, their care and commitment deepen.
She works with schools, universities, organisations and governments across Europe, Latin America and Africa to put this meaningful, engaging approach into practice and evaluate its impact.
Her current work includes METEOR, a European Commission project supporting around 300 researchers across sectors to develop research on the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
She holds BSc Computer Science · MBA Knowledge Management · MSc and PhD in Education.
What she researches, and what has changed
1. Making learning matter to young people's lives. Okada co-develops open schooling resources on the 2030 Agenda, covering topics such as rewilding, ocean protection, microplastics and sinking islands. This work continues through Blue Earth Skills, her OU initiative, inspired by the BBC/OU Blue Planet partnership and the OU Open Societal Challenge CONNECT2030. She also developed a metric to measure how young people connect science to their own lives. It was validated with over 2,000 students aged 11 to 17 and then deployed with 12,000 students in five countries (JRST, Sustainability). Her findings show that when students tackle real issues through CARE-KNOW-DO, they value science, yet few take action on their own initiative. Open schooling closes this gap by giving them structured opportunities to act with their communities. Her inquiry-skills framework reached 18,000 teachers and is built into AQA's science programme with Sheffield Hallam University. In Brazil, the São Paulo State Government credits CARE-KNOW-DO in Alfabetiza Juntos, a programme helping around 360,000 children learn to read at the right age through meaningful contexts, including environmental issues.
2. Learning in crisis. With World Vision, Okada designed a participatory evaluation of catch-up programmes for more than 17,000 children in Ethiopia, Zimbabwe and Chile, drawing on children's, educators' and caregivers' voices. Progress was shown for 70% of learners. Three connected ingredients emerged: emotional safety (care), embodied dialogue (know) and growing agency (do). Programmes also need to differ by type of crisis, and the findings shaped World Vision's catch-up learning (NORRAG).
3. Digital technology, learning and wellbeing. Her OLAF study of online learning and fun involved 7,450 students and 866 tutors in six countries (Frontiers in Education; Online Learning). It found that students' learning habits and beliefs influence how much they enjoy learning online. The findings now inform tutorial practice for over 29,000 OU students and staff. She now leads an OU team studying how digital technology affects the lives of children and young people.
4. AI for lifeworthy learning and research. AI is often taught as a technical skill, detached from purpose and ethics. Okada reframes AI literacy as an ethical, purposeful practice. Her work spans all levels of education, from basic to postgraduate. Studies include Indigenous and riverine communities in the Amazon, rural Greek schools, UK schools with many pupils on free school meals, and researchers. In a study of 330 students (IJAIED), science aspiration was linked to sustainability and purpose, not just enjoyment. Students valued science as a way to act on issues that matter to them. Her Knowledge Cartography for Young Thinkers collection (three volumes) presents cases from around the world. Its innovation is evidence-based dialogue mapping for sustainability: learners use AI mapping tools to turn real-world problems into scientific arguments and action for people and planet. The latest volume had over 25,000 downloads in its first year (Springer).
5. Preparing researchers to work beyond universities. Early-career researchers are expected to work with industry, government and communities but are rarely prepared for it. Through CONNECT and METEOR, Okada designed upSKILL.map, a reflective tool that guides researchers across four OU faculties. A pilot with 40 researchers suggests that research skills are best understood as a worldview, where technical expertise goes together with commitments to sustainability, equity and justice, rather than as measurable outputs alone. The tool also offers universities a participatory way to identify researchers’ needs, reflect on existing provision and co-develop more relevant support (Open Research Europe). The European Commission-funded project METEOR, involving 13 partners, supports more than 50 cross-national and intersectoral teams in developing transdisciplinary research proposals addressing the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Leadership and roles
- Funded research: Led research across seven European Commission-funded projects, with a total budget of €24.6 million, including €1.96 million for The Open University (OU).
Other funded projects (Principal Investigator): CatchUp funded by World Vision, OLAF and OpenLearn Knowledge Mapping funded by various Universities.
Knowledge mapping work package leader: OpenSenseMakingCommunities, GlobalArgument.net, ProLearn
- Editorial: Associate Editor of Discover Sustainability (Springer Nature), The Curriculum Journal (Wiley) and e-Curriculum (PUC-SP).
- Funders and partners: Her work has been funded by the European Commission, World Vision, the Hewlett Foundation, the Telefónica Foundation and Brazilian federal agencies (CAPES and CNPq).
Research and programme partners include two States Department of Education of São Paulo and Ceará, the Association for Science Education (UK 2019; 2024), Exus AI Lab (Greece), the Center for Social and Economic Research (Poland), the Danish Board of Technology (Denmark) and IrsiCaixa’s Living Lab for Health (Spain). She has also developed proposals and workshops with Nestlé (Brazil), UNICEF (Brazil), the International Labour Organization (ILO). Through the Community of Portuguese Language Countries (CPLP), she develops educational events and resources for Portuguese-speaking countries.
- UNESCO and UN: Representative Member, UNESCO UNITWIN AI Unplugged in Education (IAEDU). Expert Member, UNESCO Inclusive Policy Lab (IPL). The OU’s representative in the UNESCO Global Education Coalition (GEC), brokering partnerships on responsible AI in education. Her framework informed the Open Schooling Curriculum presented at the UN SDG Summit 2023 (UNGA78). Invited speaker at the UN General Assembly Education House (UNGA80) and UNESCO Digital Learning Week (DLW 2025). Author of "Rethinking AI in Research with Ancestral Wisdom for Future Generations", co-developed with Amazonian Indigenous communities for UNESCO’s AI and the Future of Education series (IdeasLAB). Regular invited participant in the UN Global Dialogue on AI Governance (UN AI) and in UN Office for Digital and Emerging Technologies (ODET) activities.
- European Commission and evaluation: Expert Adviser to the European Commission since 2014. Expert evaluator for UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), the São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP) and the Luxembourg National Research Fund (FNR).
- At the OU: Founder of the Global Education and Digital Transformation Network (GEDT); Co-Director of Rumpus, a research group exploring the role of fun in learning; and Principal Investigator (PI) of CONNECT2030: Accelerating Sustainable Development through the CARE-KNOW-DO Learning Model, a £25,000 Open Societal Challenge project advancing scientific literacy for equitable and sustainable futures.
- Publications and supervision: Author of 158 publications, including 45 published in the past six years, with 71% of these publications as first or sole author (ORO; ORDO). Supervised 11 completed PhDs.
Recognition
Five Open Education Global recognitions: three awards (ENGAGE 2017, Open App 2019, CONNECT 2025) and two finalist nominations (Open Researcher and AI in Education). The 2025 award was selected from 196 nominations across 42 countries. Her World Vision work was nominated for the UNESCO Confucius Prize for Literacy. Her CONNECT2030 project was ranked in the top 3 at the UNESCO Global Education Meeting (GEM), Fortaleza 2024.
Invited participant and contributor at high-level forums, including the World Economic Forum in Davos (WEF), the Education World Forum (EWF), the Global Sustainable Development Congress (GSDC) and the Skoll World Forum (Skoll).
Career
Okada began as a computer scientist at Johnson & Johnson and IBM in Brazil, then worked as a teacher educator and ICT curriculum designer in São Paulo schools, lectured at FGV, PUC-SP and Mackenzie University, and has been a consultant to the Brazilian Government's Secretariat for Women’s Affairs. In the UK she has been a consultant for the Association for Science Education, AQA, Sheffield Hallam University and the University of the Arts London. At The Open University she completed her PhD in 2006, contributed to the launch of OpenLearn LabSpace, then built a portfolio of funded projects, proposals and consultancy, and was appointed Research Professor in 2026. She is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.
Research interests
Education for sustainable development (environment, society, economy); equity and social justice in education, especially in Global Majority contexts; scientific literacy; digital wellbeing; critical AI and ethics; researcher development.
Work with her
- Funders and donors: Evaluation and impact design for learning programmes
- Governments and ministries: Putting CARE-KNOW-DO into education systems
- Industry and charities: School, community and researcher-skills partnerships
- Doctoral applicants: Apply through the OU doctoral programme
- Networks and programmes: UNITWIN AI Unplugged in Education, Global Education Coalition, UNESCO Inclusive Policy Lab, European Commission Horizon Europe and Erasmus+.
- Research partners: Interdisciplinary partnerships on education for equitable and sustainable futures, linking environment, society and economy.
