What’s Happening at the Lab

Brinleigh Murphy-Reuter, Program Administrator, and Kaitlin Tiches, Medical Librarian, will be workshop a session within the Designing AI for Children’s Wellbeing segment of the conference, titled “From Academia to Application: Bridging the Gap in AI Guidelines for Early Childhood (Ages 2-6)”.

This hybrid workshop aims to convene an interdisciplinary community of researchers, industry professionals, and experts in AI and child wellbeing to pave the way for future research and practice that seeks to design AI technologies with children’s wellbeing in mind.

Dr. David Bickham will be traveling to Greece to speak about the Lab’s research on a number of panels during The Lyceum Project‘s annual forum, this year focused on the high-priority issue of enabling children, tomorrow’s citizens, to flourish in the age of AI.

During this quarter’s Discussions on Digital Wellness, we will be diving into questions about why some wellbeing, privacy, and policy tools, designed to help young people stay healthy and safe online, are unknown to or underutilized by the users they are meant to protect. Members of our Student Advisory Council will be taking part in the discussion to identify ways to make these existing features more impactful for young people.

Dr. Michael Rich will lead a book talk at Boston Children’s Hospital, diving into his book “The Mediatrician’s Guide: A Joyful Approach to Raising Healthy, Smart, Kind Kids in a Screen-Saturated World”.

Please join us in extending a warm welcome to our 2025 Summer Research Interns, Abbie and Wren! They will be working with our team for the next few months as we launch new studies, dig into data, and write up our findings!

Kaitlin Tiches, Medical Librarian, will be the keynote speaker at a meeting for The Massachusetts Administrators for Special Education. During her presentation, Kaitlin will discuss ways educators can support mental and physical health when considering a student’s digital habit, and how to develop proactive strategies and techniques to respond to students who are having an adverse effect with social media interaction.

Dr. Michael Rich will present a continuing medical education course to clinicians across the Boston Children’s Hospital campus on Digital Wellness for Children.

The members of our Youth & Interactive Media Coalition at Harvard University will meet to discuss current projects and collaboration activities and to finalize plans for our July symposium on AI guardrails for young children.

Kaitlin Tiches, Lab Librarian, will be presenting a workshop focused on general healthy tech and media use practices and considerations for maintaining and building healthy balance during the summer months.

Dr. Michael Rich will present about social media, cell phones, and the effects of these technologies on children’s and teens’ wellbeing.

Kaitlin Tiches, Lab Librarian, will present a workshop aimed at bridging the generation gap to support young people’s and families’ healthy tech and media use.

Cori Stott, Lab Executive Director, will be presenting at the Boston Children’s Hospital League Spring Open Meeting on the influence of social media on children’s mental and social wellbeing. The conversation will delve into the influence of digital media on children’s mental and social wellbeing and share tips on navigating tech conversations with kids across the age span.

Dr. Michael Rich and Kathy Cooney, LICSW will be presenting a course to medical students on problematic media use, identification, and interventions. This course will be part of the Adolescent/Young Adult Medicine Division’s annual two-day lecture series on topics core to adolescent practitioners’ work.

In collaboration with Boston Childrens’ Office of Community Health and Atrius Health Equity Foundation, Lab team members Michael Carter, Scientist; Katrina Ho, Clinical Research Specialist; and Zoë Kronberg, Student Researcher, will be leading an interactive youth session on social media and the impact on mental health.

Lab team members Sam Schwamm, Research Manager; Dr. David Bickham, Research Director; and Cori Stott, Executive Director will attend the local PAX East gaming conference to engage with game developers and share about the Lab’s work.

Kaitlin Tiches, Librarian and Knowledge Manager, will be at the Medical Library Association conference presenting her work on the creation process and impact of the Lab’s Research Briefs. Her work will highlight how medical librarians can support outreach efforts from their organizations to provide multiple stakeholders with concise and accessible materials about topics of wide interest.