Dr. Katie Davis is Associate Professor at the University of Washington (UW) and Director of the UW Digital Youth Lab. For nearly twenty years, Dr. Davis has been researching the impact of digital technologies on young people’s learning, development, and well-being. She uses the insights from her research to design positive technology experiences for youth and their families. At the University of Washington, Dr. Davis mentors undergraduate and graduate students and teaches courses on child development and technology design.

In addition to her more than 70 academic publications, Dr. Davis is the author of three books exploring technology’s role in young people’s lives: Technology’s Child: Digital Media’s Role in the Ages and Stages of Growing Up, The App Generation: How Youth Navigate Identity, Intimacy, and Imagination in a Digital World (with Howard Gardner), and Writers in the Secret Garden: Fanfiction, Youth, and New Forms of Mentoring (with Cecilia Aragon). In each of these books, Dr. Davis draws on her expertise in developmental science and technology design, as well as her experiences as a parent, to make sense of the often-confusing landscape of research and media messages about kids and technology.

Prior to joining the faculty at the University of Washington, Dr. Davis was a research scientist at Harvard Project Zero, where she worked on the research team that collaborated with Common Sense Media to develop the first iteration of their digital citizenship curriculum. From 2018-2022, she was a visiting research scientist in the Human Computer Interaction Lab at Hasso Plattner Institute in Potsdam, Germany. Dr. Davis holds two master’s degrees and a doctorate in Human Development and Education from Harvard Graduate School of Education. She is a 2015 recipient of a Rising Star Award from the Association for Psychological Science.