Patti Valkenburg
About the chair
The use of digital media has grown explosively in recent years. Young people are particularly heavy users of digital technologies such as Youtube, Facebook and Instagram. Patti Valkenburg focuses on the turbulent changes in the digital media landscape and its implications for individuals and society.
A monodisciplinary approach is inadequate when seeking to understand the impact of the changes in the contemporary media landscape. Her research is characterised by an approach encompassing various scientific disciplines, including psychology, child development and communication science.
About Patti Valkenburg
Patti M. Valkenburg (1958) has been professor of Youth and Media at the University of Amsterdam since 1998. In 2011, she was appointed distinguished research professor at the UvA's Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences. She is founder and director of the Center for Research on Children, Adolescents and the Media (CcaM). In 2003, she received a Vici grant from the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) and an Advanced Grant from the European Research Council (ERC) in 2009. She was awarded the prestigious NWO Spinoza Prize, the highest scientific prize in the Netherlands, in 2011. In 2012, the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science (OCW) awarded a ‘Gravitation’ grant worth 27.6 million euros for the research project 'Individual Development: Why Some Children Thrive, and Others do Not', a collaborative project in the Netherlands for which she is one of the five principal researchers. Patti Valkenburg is a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW).
Valkenburg conducts research into theories that can explain the cognitive, emotional and social effects of media. Last year, the scientific journal Communication Education named her the most productive communication scientist in Europe. She established and developed the Youth and Media discipline at the UvA. Under her leadership, the CcaM has become the largest research centre of its kind in the world. As a University Professor, she will strive to further expand the interdisciplinary orientation and the international scientific role of CcaM.