Dr. Katie Hart, Ph.D.
Dr. Katie (Kat) Hart, Ph.D, is an Associate Professor of Psychology at Florida International University (FIU). She is a core faculty member in the Clinical Science in Child in Adolescent Psychology Doctoral Program and the Center for Children and Families (CCF).
Dr. Hart completed her undergraduate training at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee before attending The State University of New York at Buffalo for her doctoral training in Clinical Psychology. She completed her clinical internship at the University of Miami’s Mailman Center for Child Development where she specialized in preschool and early interventions for children ages 0-5. She joined the FIU faculty as a postdoctoral fellow in Intervention Research for Children with Disruptive Behavior Disorders in 2012 and joined the tenure-track faculty in 2014.
Dr. Hart is an expert in the area of promoting school readiness in early childhood for children with or at-risk for Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and related disruptive behavior disorders and learning problems. Dr. Hart is one of the key leaders in the CCF’s efforts to translate and disseminate evidence-based interventions to promote school readiness for young children into early childhood centers and public schools, as well as community-based afterschool and summer programs, in Miami-Dade County’s communities of greatest need. Her research and clinical work addresses the development, evaluation, and dissemination of early behavioral and academic interventions and treatments across home, school, clinic, summer, and community settings. Over the last several years, her work has also focused on the development of interventions addressing issues of intervention attendance and adherence for families of children from low-income backgrounds; culturally competent interventions for families from Latino/Hispanic and Haitian backgrounds; and mental health policy as it relates to the dissemination of evidence-based interventions in school and community settings.
To that end, she is a member of FIU’s ACCESS partnership with Miami-Dade County Schools and coordinates several of the CCF’s school-based initiatives to promote positive behavior across schools here in Miami-Dade County.
She has several active research and clinical programs. She is the Program Director for the Summer Treatment Program for PreKindergarteners, an 8-week comprehensive school readiness program for young children with or at-risk for social-emotional, behavioral, developmental, and learning challenges. She is also the Program Director for the Reading Explorers Program, a Children’s Trust-funded initiative providing reading enhancements to young children at risk for reading failure across Miami-Dade County. Additionally, she is the Program Director of The Children’s Trust’s Parent Club in partnership with FIU, which partners with local schools and community agencies to provide free parenting workshops focused on promoting positive parenting skills. She currently serves as a member of the Superintendent’s District Advisory Panel for Students with Disabilities (Early Childhood Special Education), FIU’s Special Education Advisory Board, and is a current member and former chair of the Young Children with Special Needs and Disabilities Council of Miami-Dade.
Dr. Hart is passionate about teaching, mentoring, and training students at all levels. She hopes that all the students, trainees, and staff members who join the lab or join for one of our summer programs feel inspired by the work that we do, the children and families whose lives we touch, and the greater reach that we hope to one day have by rigorously studying and evaluating the interventions we have developed.
Although she is not a native South Floridian, Dr. Hart is proud to be a member of the Miami-Dade community and the FIU Panther Family.