Presentations – 2025

Trust and Safety and Policy professionals from several technology and media companies will join our Student Advisory Council for a discussion about the career paths available in tech focused on designing and maintaining healthy and safe online spaces.

Dr. Michael Rich will be speaking with pediatric clinicians at New York Presbyterian Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital at Columbia University Irving Medical Center about Problematic Interactive Media Use (PIMU) / Problematic Media Use (PMU) and the work conducted at the Clinic for Interactive Media and Internet Disorders (CIMAID) at Boston Children’s Hospital.

Massachusetts Partnerships for Youth is a non-profit organization serving schools and other entities in Massachusetts with a mission of prevention and intervention in matters of health and safety for youth. Dr. Michael Rich will be presenting about Problematic Interactive Media Use (PIMU) / Problematic Media Use (PMU) at their conference in a session titled “Youth, Mental Health, and Social Media: Understanding the challenges and Opportunities,” sharing information about PIMU / PMU detection and intervention with school counselors, psychologists, social workers, teachers, and administrators.

Dr. Rich will be meeting with the families and staff of Mason Rich Elementary School to discuss his book, The Mediatrician’s Guide: A Joyful Approach to Raising Healthy, Smart, Kind Kids in a Screen-Saturated World.

The Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop will host a fireside chat with The Mediatrician, Dr. Michael Rich, and Dr. Rosemarie Truglio, Senior Vice President of Curriculum and Content at Sesame Workshop. During this interactive session, Drs. Rich and Truglio will share practical strategies and research-based insights into how parents can guide their children toward balanced and mindful media use.

Companies and organizations that design and deploy digital monitoring, moderating, and other safety interventions play a unique role in the digital ecosystem. Signatories and advisors in the Inspired Internet Pledge, led by Scroll by Choice, are convening a group of solutions providers to dig their perspectives and how they drive change within the three Pledge principles, to build a safer internet.

Dr. Michael Rich is the keynote speaker at the Children’s Foundation of Mississippi’s annual summit, Heart to Hearts: Conversations on the Changing Landscape of Childhood. The summit will also feature the release of the 2025 Mississippi KIDS Count report, a presentation from the FrameWorks Institute, and workshop breakout sessions on supporting children’s wellbeing.

Dr. Michael Rich will present a session to families and educators at BU Academy in Boston, discussing how to raise healthy, smart, kind kids in a screen-saturated world.

Our Student Advisory Council members will be joined by a panel of experts from Boston Children’s Hospital to discuss current topics and careers in mental health. Our experts include:

• Dr. Stacy Drury, Psychiatrist in Chief
• Dr. Erica Lee, Psychologist
• Marisa Otis, MPH, Manager of Community Programs

The Advisors and Signatories of the Inspired Internet Pledge meet quarterly to discuss commitments and current and future initiatives, and to share about research, promising practices, and opportunities for collaboration.

The Lab will be convening our supporters for a deep dive into our most recent research, including early analyses of our forthcoming Pulse Survey on cell phone bans in schools.

Dr. Michael Rich will be presenting on young people’s digital wellbeing, based on his book The Mediatrician’s Guide, for the Wellness Institute’s ongoing webinar series. Learn more.

Dr. Michael Rich will be joining the parents/caregivers, educators, and students of New York’s Horace Mann School to discuss methods for building healthy, balanced screen habits.

The 2024-2025 Digital Wellness Student Advisory Council cohort will be leading their final presentations, sharing their takeaways and experiences with industry and healthcare leaders and, most importantly, their family and friends. Learn more.

The lab’s medical librarian Kaitlin Tiches will be joining the Pennsylvania Family Support Alliance‘s Spotlight Speaker Series to deliver a presentation about the opportunities and risks associated with young people’s use of AI. Learn more.

The Lab’s team will be participating in the Massachusetts Governor’s youth leadership summit focused on building healthy relationships and developing community leadership skills. This event, featuring engagement with the Lieutenant Governor and local professional athletes, aims to equip high school students with practical tools for healthy relationships with their peers, family members, and the broader community. Learn more.

Dr. Michael Rich will be moderating a panel exploring young people’s experiences of aggression online, including cyberbullying, hate speech, and violence. Learn more about Children & Screens’ Ask the Experts series.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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

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.

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!

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”.

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. 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.

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.

This workshop will bring together academic experts, industry professionals, and youth representatives to develop the first comprehensive, expert-validated guidelines specifically for creating generative AI products for children ages 2-6. This collaborative effort aims to translate existing research into practical, actionable recommendations that technology developers can use when considering designing or developing AI tools for young users. The recommendations will promote developmental considerations while addressing current gaps in early childhood-specific AI guidance.

We will be diving into some of the initial insights from our nationwide survey on youth belonging in online spaces with Lab Supporters.

Dr. Michael Rich will be presenting a keynote about his book, The Mediatrician’s Guide, now available in Brazilian Portuguese!

Kaitlin Tiches will be participating in a closed-door briefing hosted by the Tech Coalition, alongside the UN General Assembly, focused on strengthening how we measure progress toward increased online child safety.

Dr. David Bickham will be presenting a talk on digital wellness and mental health to the Psychiatric APRN Collaborative.

Hannah Chidekel, Katrina Ho, and Dr. Zoey Yue will be sharing the Lab’s early insights from our nationwide survey on youth belonging in online spaces with members of the Inspired Internet Pledge.

Kaitlin Tiches will be speaking about digital wellbeing topics for the public at the Waltham Library.

Research Manager Sam Schwamm will be leading a presentation at the Wellness Together Conference, talking with school and district leadership and policymakers from around the country about the key takeaways from our recent Pulse Survey on cell phone policies.

Dr. Michael Rich will deliver the keynote at this day-long summit held at Greenfield Community College. In a presentation titled, “Raising Healthy, Smart, Kind Humans in the Age of Social Media and AI,” Dr. Rich will share with educators, policymakers, and educational leaders from around the state about what we are learning in our research and clinical work about how to keep kids healthy amid technological growth and change.

Lab Executive Director, Cori Stott, will be joining Catherine Teitelbaum from Amazon Kids for a fireside chat titled “Growing Up with AI: Research-Based Insights for the Digital Age”. Cori and Catherine will be sharing with participants thoughts on what research and lessons from past tech shifts tell us about how families can confidently navigate the opportunities and challenges of the AI era. Learn more.

In this webinar hosted by Bright Horizons, Kaitlin Tiches will be sharing about the latest research on teens, tweens, social media, and screen time, to support parents seeking to learn more about helping their children to thrive within a digitally saturated world. Learn more.

Dr. Zhiying (Zoey) Yue is joining a group of researchers convened by the Prosocial Design Network to translate research to practice in prosocial design within social gaming environments. The researchers will work to identify evidence-based approaches to designing healthy interactions, connections, and community. Learn more about prosocial design here.

In her presentation titled “From Academia to Application: Bridging the Gap in AI Guidelines for Early Childhood (Ages 2-6),” Brinleigh Murphy-Reuter will be sharing about the progress made in our recent Harvard-Radcliffe Institute convening to develop actionable guidelines for use by product designers creating AI-enabled tools for use by young children. Learn more.

Nicole Powell is presenting a poster evaluating the PIMU-11 as a validated, developmentally grounded screener that links media behaviors with functional impact to provide clinicians actionable insight into adolescent digital media concerns.

Gaming continues to be very popular among youth with new platforms and apps introduced daily, bringing new challenges and opportunities around youth digital safety and well-being. Join this townhall hosted by National PTA, and featuring the Lab’s Dr. David Bickham, to gain insight on what young people are experiencing and looking for in gaming platforms and how families can take positive, practical and proactive approaches to ensure these platforms are places where their children can thrive and be safe. Register here.

We will be closing out the year with a deep dive into the Amplify Youth Summit experience, including key takeaways and insights.