Vikki Katz, PhD

Vikki Katz is Associate Professor at the School of Communication and Information at Rutgers University, and a Senior Research Scientist at the Joan Ganz Cooney Center.

Her research focuses on Latino families and how they engage each other and technology for different kinds of activities. She is currently partnering with the JGCC to explore how low-income Latino families make decisions about adopting broadband and digital technologies that are offered through digital equity initiatives, to establish how these can be better leveraged for learning gains. This research is being generously funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Her work has been published in a number of journals, including Journal of Children and Media, Journal of Communication and Journal of Information Policy. Her book, Kids in the Middle, examines the roles that children of immigrants play in their families’ social integration by brokering language, culture, and media content(Rutgers University Press). She also co-authored Understanding Ethnic Media (Sage Publications).

Dr. Katz holds a B.A. from UCLA and an M.A. and Ph.D. from the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism at the University of Southern California, where she also held an Annenberg Foundation postdoctoral fellowship for two years. You can learn more about her work at vikkikatz.com