When Anna Otto evangelizes about the power of computer science to transform lives, she’s not just talking as the computer science coordinator for a suburban Colorado district. She’s speaking as a mom.

The invention of the computer is often articulated like a three-act play: the idea of the computer arrives, then there is the process of how to make the computer and, finally, there is the creation.

With a severe shortage of college-trained IT workers across the U.S., what’s it going to take to get more students to pursue computer science studies? Two researchers think they have an answer: ...