Cathy Davidson

Duke University Professor/ Co-Founder of HASTAC

Area of Expertise:

Social and cultural history of technology; new modes of peer-to-peer assessment; redesigning institutions for the digital age, especially higher education

Cathy served from 1998 until 2006 as the first Vice Provost for Interdisciplinary Studies at Duke University, where she worked with faculty to help create many programs, including the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience and the program in Information Science + Information Studies (ISIS). Along with David Theo Goldberg and fifteen scholars from many fields, in 2002 she co-founded Humanities, Arts, Science, and Technology Advanced Collaboratory, HASTAC (“haystack”), a network of innovators dedicated to new forms of learning for the digital age. With Goldberg and HASTAC teams at UCHRI and Duke, she co-directs the $2 million annual HASTAC/John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Digital Media and Learning Competitions. At Duke University, Cathy holds two distinguished chairs, Ruth F. DeVarney Professor of English and the John Hope Franklin Humanities Institute Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies. She has published more than twenty books, including Revolution and the Word: The Rise of the Novel in America; Closing: The Life and Death of an American Factory (with photographer Bill Bamberger); and The Future of Thinking: Learning Institutions in a Digital Age (with David Theo Goldberg). She blogs regularly on new media, learning, and innovation on the www.hastac.org website as “Cat in the Stack” as well as on dmlcentral.net and PsychologyToday.com. Her forthcoming book is Now You See It: How the Brain Science of Attention Will Transform the Way We Live, Work, and Learn (Viking Press). Her author blog, including the schedule of upcoming appearances on her extended book tour, is at www.nowyouseeit.net. In December 2010, President Obama nominated her to the National Council on the Humanities.