Lab Director

Dr. Katie (Kat) Hart, Ph.D, is an Associate Professor of Psychology at Florida International University (FIU) and is the Director of the Center for Children and Families (CCF). She is a core faculty member in the Clinical Science in Child and Adolescent Psychology Doctoral Program and the Center for Children and Families.

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. Her work centers solving issues of access to care and engagement in interventions for families of children living in urban poverty; utilizing out-of-school time (i.e., afterschool and summer) programming to leverage change; community-partnered culturally responsive adaptations of interventions; and mental health policy as it relates to the dissemination of evidence-based interventions across settings. Additionally, her work has focused on the evaluation of school-based interventions, specifically strengthening workforce development in positive behavioral and academic supports and interventions across early childhood and elementary settings.

She has several active research and clinical programs. She is the Program Director for FIU Summer Academy, a 7-week comprehensive summer treatment and 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 national pacesetting Reading Explorers Program, funded by both The Children’s Trust and the Children’s Services Council of Broward County, providing reading enhancements to young children at risk for reading failure across Miami-Dade and Broward Counties. 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, FIU’s R.I.S.E. Council, the Mayor’s Blue Ribbon Children’s Commission, the Miami-Dade County Grade-Level Reading Campaign, and the Head Start Health and Mental Health Advisory Committee. 

Nationally, she co-chairs the Summer Treatment Program (STP) Special Interest Group (SIG), and serves as the Associate Editor for Evidence-Based Practice in Child and Adolescent Mental Health, Division 53’s flagship practice journal.

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. Paws up!