Kate Starbird

Kate Starbird is a Visiting Assistant Professor at the Cyber Policy Center and Associate Professor at the Department of Human Centered Design & Engineering (HCDE) at the University of Washington (UW). Starbird’s research is situated within human-computer interaction (HCI) and the emerging field of crisis informatics—the study of the how information-communication technologies (ICTs) are used during crisis events. One aspect of her research focuses on how online rumors spread during natural disasters and man-made crisis events. More recently, she has begun to focus on disinformation and other forms of strategic information operations online. She is a co-founder and executive council member of the UW Center for an Informed Public. Starbird earned her PhD from the University of Colorado at Boulder in Technology, Media and Society and holds a BS in Computer Science from Stanford University.