Faculty
Katie Davis
Dr. Katie Davis is Associate Professor at the University of Washington (UW) Information School, Adjunct Associate Professor in the UW College of Education, and a founding member and Co-Director of the UW Digital Youth Lab. Katie investigates the impact of digital technologies on young people’s learning, development, and well-being, and co-designs positive technology experiences for youth and their families. Her work bridges the fields of human development, human-computer interaction, and the learning sciences.
In addition to her academic papers, Katie 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 (MIT Press, 2023), Writers in the Secret Garden: Fanfiction, Youth, and New Forms of Mentoring (with Cecilia Aragon, MIT Press, 2019), and The App Generation: How Youth Navigate Identity, Intimacy, and Imagination in a Digital World (with Howard Gardner, Yale University Press, 2013).
Prior to joining the faculty at the University of Washington, Katie was a research scientist at Harvard Project Zero. From 2018-2022, she was a visiting research scientist in the Human Computer Interaction Lab at Hasso Plattner Institute in Potsdam, Germany. Katie holds two master’s degrees and a doctorate in Human Development and Education from Harvard Graduate School of Education.
Karen Fisher
Karen Fisher teaches and conducts research on how people experience information as part of everyday life, with emphasis on the interpersonal aspects of information behavior, the role of informal social settings in information flow and its connection to happiness, as well as the broad impacts of information and communication technologies. Her current work asks how ethnic minority youth seek information and use technology on behalf of other people, especially older family members.
Alexis Hiniker
Alexis Hiniker is an assistant professor at the iSchool, where she studies Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and builds technologies for children and families. She also studies the design of manipulative, addictive, and exploitative technologies for users of all ages. Hiniker is a member of UW’s design-use-build grassroots alliance in HCI+D, and she holds a Ph.D. in Human Centered Design and Engineering from the University of Washington, a master’s degree in Learning, Design and Technology from Stanford University, and a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from Harvard.
Amy Ko
Amy studies computing education in secondary and post-secondary settings, particularly as it relates to broadening participation, equity, and justice. She’s particularly interested in helping youth understand the limits of code, data, and machine learning, and empowering educators to teach these limits in inclusive and equitable ways. She draws upon expertise in computer science and learning sciences, and primarily publishes in CS education and HCI venues.
Jin Ha Lee
Jin Ha Lee is a Professor and Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs at the Information School in University of Washington and the director of the GAMER (GAME Research) Group. Her research interests include: music, game, and multimedia information seeking and retrieval, information organization and access, and knowledge representation. The GAMER Group explores new ideas and approaches for organizing and providing access to video games and interactive media, understanding user behavior related to popular cultural materials, and using these materials for informal learning for topics such as misinformation and mental health.
Julie Kientz
Julie Kientz is a Professor and Chair of the department of Human Centered Design & Engineering at the University of Washington. She directs the Computing for Healthy Living and Learning Lab, is active in the Design, Use, Build (dub) alliance, and has adjunct appointments in The Information School and Computer Science & Engineering. Her research focuses on understanding and reducing the user burdens of interactive technologies for health, education, and families through the design of future applications.
Cecilia Aragon
Cecilia Aragon is a professor in the department of Human Centered Design & Engineering (HCDE), where she directs the Human-Centered Data Science Lab. Her research focuses on human-centered data science, which concerns itself with both the algorithms and the highly interwoven and multifaceted interactions among individuals, society, and technology that are catalyzed by the enormous growth in data that characterizes the current age.
Michelle Martin
Dr. Michelle H. Martin is the Beverly Cleary Endowed Professor for Children and Youth Services in the Information School at the University of Washington and from 2011-2016 was the inaugural Augusta Baker Endowed Chair in Childhood Literacy at the University of South Carolina. She published Brown Gold: Milestones of African-American Children’s Picture Books, 1845-2002 (Routledge, 2004) and co-edited Sexual Pedagogies: Sex Education in Britain, Australia, and America, 1879-2000 (with Claudia Nelson, Palgrave, 2003).
Jason Yip
Jason Yip is an assistant professor at the Information School in University of Washington. His research examines how technologies can support parents and children learning together. He is a co-principal investigator on a National Science Foundation Cyberlearning project on designing social media technologies to support neighborhoods learning science together. He is the director of KidsTeam UW, an intergenerational group of children (ages 7 – 11) and researchers co-designing new technologies and learning activities for children, with children. Learn more about Yip’s work with KidsTeam UW and the CTRL+F Lab.
Lucía Magis-Weinberg
Lucia Magis-Weinberg is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at University of Washington and director of the interACTlab. She originally trained as an MD in the National Autonomous University of México, followed by an MSc in Cognitive Neuroscience and then a PhD in Experimental Psychology studying adolescent cognitive development in University College London. She was a postdoctoral fellow at UC Berkeley, where she launched my research on adolescent digital media use in Latin America.
Emeritus
Mike Eisenberg
Mike Eisenberg and co-author Bob Berkowitz created the Big6 approach to information literacy. He has worked with thousands of students–pre-K through higher education–as well as people in business, government, and communities to improve their information and technology skills. His current work focuses on information, communications, and technology (ICT) literacy, information credibility, and information science education K-20.
In Memoriam
Eliza Dresang
Eliza Dresang contributed to the iSchool until her passing on April 21, 2014. She studied digital youth information behavior and resources influenced by the digital environment. Her 1999 book Radical Change: Books for Youth in a Digital Age is cited for its Radical Change Theory which posits a positive fundamental shift in reading interaction for children because of digitally designed books and hypertext-like formats; subsequently Radical Change theory has been applied to the study of youth information behaviors. Three national conferences have been held on Radical Change theory. Her other research interests involved early literacy initiatives, youth and cultural diversity, intellectual access to information, leadership in technology, and evaluation of library services. She served on the Newbery Award (as chair), Jane Addams Children’s Book Award, Caldecott Award, Batchelder Award (as chair), Notable Children’s book (as chair), Odyssey Audiobook Award, and Phoenix Picture Book Award (as chair) Committees and on the Board of the Association of Library Service to Children. In 2007, she was chosen for the American Library Association/Scholastic Publishing Award presented annually for “unusual contribution to the stimulation and guidance of reading by children and young people.”
Postdocs
Alannah Oleson
Postdoctoral Researcher, iSchool
Research Interests: human-computer interaction (HCI) education, computing education research, justice-centered technology design
Caroline Pitt
Postdoctoral Researcher, Human Centered Design & Engineering
Research Interests: participatory design, digital youth, human-computer interaction, design research
Students
Coordinators
The PhD student coordinators manage several aspects of planning for the Digital Youth Lab, such as lab meetings, event planning, maintenance of this site, and more.
Rotem Landesman
PhD Student, Information School
Research Interests: autonomy-centered design, philosophy teaching, computing education, digital wellbeing
Nisha Devasia
PhD Student, Human Centered Design & Engineering
Research Interests: human centered gaming, eudaimonia, games for education and mental health
Megumi Kivuva
PhD Student, Information School
Research Interests: Computing Education, Broadening Participation in Computing, justice-centered CS pedagogy
Chris Yue Fu
PhD Student, Information School
Research Interests: AI for behavior change, AI-mediated communication, AI-supported relationships and emotions, LLM-powered conversational agents
Current Students
Daeun Yoo
PhD Student, Information School
Research Interests: human-centered AI, creative learning, well-being
Michele Newman
PhD Student, Information School
Research Interests: preservation of interactive media, music information retrieval
JaeWon Kim
PhD Student, Information School
Research Interests: social media, adolescents, AR/VR
Emmi Russo
PhD Student, Information School
Research Interests: learning through play, child-computer interaction, joint media engagement in video games and mobile apps
Alumni
Abigail Evans: Assistant Professor, University of York
W.E. King: Assistant Teaching Professor, University of Washington iSchool
Dastyni Loksa: Assistant Professor, Towson University
Greg Nelson: Assistant Professor, University of Maine
Saba Kawas: Research Scientist, University of Minnesota
Michael Lee: Associate Professor, New Jersey Institute of Technology
J. Elizabeth Mills: Research Associate, University of Washington iSchool
Benjamin Xie: Postdoctoral Fellow, Stanford University
Stefania Druga: Principal Researcher, Center of Applied AI Research at the University of Chicago
Jean Salac: Assistant Professor, Carleton College
Collaborators
June Ahn (New York University)
Anne Beitlers (UW College of Education)
Philip Bell (UW College of Education)
Margaret Burnett (Oregon State University)
Lisa Castaneda (Foundry10)
Tamara Clegg (University of Maryland)
Betsy DiSalvo (Georgia Tech)
Carl DiSalvo (Georgia Tech)
Sarah Dryden-Peterson (Harvard Graduate School of Education)
Carmen Gonzalez (UW Communications)
Carrie James (Harvard Graduate School of Education)
Jennifer Jenson (York University)
Vikki Katz (Rutgers University)
Joshua Lawler (UW School of Environmental and Forest Sciences)
Min Li (UW College of Education)
Jenny Radesky (University of Michigan)
Juan Rubio (Seattle Public Library)
Jessica Schleider (Stony Brook University)
Petr Slovak (King’s College London)
Kiley Sobel (Duolingo)
Mega Subramaniam (University of Maryland)
Lori Takeuchi and Michael Levine (Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop)
Katie Headrick Taylor (UW College of Education)
Carrie Tzou (UW Bothell)