Biography

Kayla M. Booth is an Assistant Professor of Instruction in the School of Information at The University of Texas at Austin. She is the PI and Director of the iSchool Inclusion Institute (i3) (i3-inclusion.org), an award winning, national undergraduate research and leadership development program that prepares students from underrepresented populations for graduate study and careers in the information sciences. As an educator, Dr. Booth collaboratively builds courses and experiences rooted in cultural humility that empower students to apply human-centered values to data, information, and technology in pursuit of a more equitable world in ways that align with their skills, interests, and passions.

Informed by her time at the Berkman Klein Center’s Youth and Media Lab, her dissertation explored how the intersections of class, race, and gender relate to the ways in which teenagers assess the quality of nutrition and exercise information they interact with on social media. She continues to employ a youth-oriented, strengths-based approach across her research and teaching. Her work focuses on the co-design and evaluation of community-led health and education interventions to support and empower marginalized youth populations. These interventions take a myriad of formats, including curriculum design, community programming, app and software development, training and policy evaluation, etc.

Dr. Booth’s work has been funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Institute of Museum and Library Services. Prior to joining the faculty at UT Austin, she served as a Research Assistant Professor at the University of Pittsburgh’s School of Computing and Information, where she was awarded the university's 2020 Provost’s Award for Diversity in the Curriculum.

Degrees

Ph.D. in Information Sciences & Technology, The Pennsylvania State University
B.A. in English; Communication, Rutgers University